The CSIRO came close to accepting a sale offer for part of its 701-hectare site last year off the Barton Highway near Belconnen before the buyer pulled out in December, an audit has revealed.
Auditor-General Grant Hehir's report into the CSIRO's 10-year property consolidation plan details a long list of failings and changes.
The agency has a $1.7 billion property portfolio, including 935 buildings across 58 sites, including six in Canberra.
The ageing portfolio needs maintenance and refits and is expensive, with the agency having more than double the benchmark government average of 38 square metres a person, the audit says.
The aim of the 2012 property plan was to reduce the science agency's building footprint by 26 per cent and rein in costs.
In fact, property costs had increased 43 per cent in real terms, the building footprint had been reduced by 10 per cent, Mr Hehir reports.
In 2012 it was spending $157 million on managing its properties; now it is spending $197 million.
The former Ginninderra field station, slated for 15,000 homes, was to help fund the consolidation of the sprawling property portfolio, but attempts to develop it and sell it have tripped up repeatedly.
The CSIRO now has the 701 hectare site, on the opposite side of the Barton Highway from Gold Creek and Gungahlin, slated for sale this year. The field station has moved to a farm at Boorowa.
Meantime, in 2018, the federal government approved a $110 million loan to the CSIRO, to be paid back once Ginninderra is sold.
But Ginninderra project has been troubled, with joint-venture talks between the ACT government and the CSIRO to develop the block collapsing in early 2016.
The audit now reveals that the CSIRO's plans were stymied in late 2016, when the Department of Finance received legal advice saying the CSIRO might not have the power to enter a land joint venture.
While the CSIRO already had the green light from internal legal advice, it then sought its own external legal advice which said it didn't have the power to develop and sell land for the sole reason of raising money.
"If CSIRO's powers were that broad, it would allow CSIRO to do anything whatsoever that is directed towards raising money, even if the activity had nothing to do with science," the advice said.
In mid 2017, the CSIRO went to the market for a joint venture partner, but the attempt failed.
A year later, in mid 2018, the CSIRO decided instead to sell off a portion of the site, receiving advice that a conditional sale would be within its powers.
But it seems it never went to market.
Instead, in November that year it received an unsolicited offer for the portion. A best and final offer followed, and in August 2019 the board approved more work on the offer. But by December 2019, the buyer pulled out, leaving the CSIRO back at square 1.
A spokesperson for the CSIRO said it was now "preparing for a fresh approach to the market in 2020".
He gave no further details, and would not name the buyer with which it was negotiating last year. Nor would he say which portion of the site had been carved off for sale, nor whether the CSIRO still expected to make $100 million from the sale.
The audit said the agency's board had received eight papers on the sale between 2015 and 2019.
In Canberra, the property consolidation plan also involved moving staff from Campbell, Crace, Yarralumla and Acton to a new building at Black Mountain, as well as selling part of the Black Mountain site and Ginninderra, according to the audit.
The sale plan for part of Black Mountain had since been abandoned.
The lease on the Crace site ended in mid-2022 but the site was unlikely to be vacated by then given delays in plans for a new collections building at Black Mountain.
The Yarralumla lease also expires in mid-2022.
Last year, the agency adopted a new 10-year property plan.
The field station development presents separate problems for the ACT government, by threatening the government's position as Canberra's monopoly land developer.
It will also directly compete with the government's nearby joint venture with the Corkhill Brothers to develop a vast housing estate at Ginninderry west of Belconnen.
The ACT has been fighting hard against development north of Gungahlin in NSW, supporting a no-development buffer zone which will protect Ginninderry.
Kirsten Lawson
It's about the truth for me. That means asking questions. Then asking more questions. On the best days, we get answers.
It's about the truth for me. That means asking questions. Then asking more questions. On the best days, we get answers.
