By Jeremy Cook
Renovations to Allora Community Hall have uncovered a series of hurdles which could limit the building’s capacity by an estimated 300 people, emails have revealed.
The hall has remained closed since November 2021 after Southern Downs Regional Council found the ageing building had fallen into structural disrepair.
Early this year, contractors began remedial work to fix those structural deformations to bring the hall up to a standard which was safe enough for the council to reopen it.
In emails sent to members of the Allora community in April, the council’s community services manager Michael Bell revealed the council found the building did not meet minimum national building standards required to “maximise” the building’s capacity.
“When looking at the auditorium’s floor area, it has been identified that the existing internal toilets don’t meet the needs of the National Construction Code (“NCC”) when it comes to the ratio of toilets required to maximise the building’s occupation,” Mr Bell wrote.
“This leaves council with one of two options – either reduce the building’s capacity or find a solution to increase the toilet numbers to ensure they meet the needs of the building when at capacity.”
Mr Bell said external toilets located on Muir Street could be used “in the calculation of the hall capacity” as long as they remained “accessible and operational”. But it appears those toilets have been overcome by their own plumbing issues.
“The external toilets on Muir Street that are often used as overflow for the hall currently sit within the road reserve (including the holding tank),” he wrote.
“This is not ideal.
“In addition, the current holding tank servicing the Muir Street toilets is too small, meaning the system is being pumped out more regularly, which creates both an inconvenience to users and an increased maintenance cost to council.”
In subsequent emails, Mr Bell said a solution to replace and relocate the Muir Street toilets had been abandoned due to “time and cost”.
Mr Bell said as long as the Muir Street toilets remained “accessible and operational, they could be used “in the calculation of the hall capacity”. Though, it is unclear as to what the current state of the toilets are and whether they will be functional when the building is reopened.
The council’s director of customer and organisational services Leon Love said no capacity had officially been defined for the hall before remedial works started “due to the age of the building”.
Allora Community Circle spokeswoman Jaimie McMillan estimated the hall’s previous capacity at approximately 300 seated and 500 standing.
In an email, Mr Bell said given “the floor area and facilities available as per the National Construction Code”, the council were working towards reopening the hall with a capacity of about 200.
“However, the final decision will come down to the certifier,” he wrote.
The council is understood to be in the process of acquiring an occupancy certificate which will determine the hall’s official capacity. Mr Love said the certification will consider “the floor area, fire provisions and service availability” of the hall in calculating its capacity.
A delayed reopening has been forecast for early-August, while other issues like the hall’s wastewater drainage system, are addressed.
“As it currently exists, the wastewater from the hall is disposed of to a septic tank located in the footpath, with an absorption trench in the road reserve,” Mr Bell wrote in an email in April.
The council is understood to be waiting on a second replacement septic tank to arrive after the first was “damaged in transit and had to be returned”, Mr Love said.
Despite the delays, Mr Love said the project was not expected to exceed its initial budget, coming in at a cost of about $300,000.
