Brethren meeting hall wins approval | St George & Sutherland Shire Leader.
THE Exclusive Brethren can build a $1.27 million, 900-seat meeting hall as a place of worship in bushland at Heathcote on the edge of the Royal National Park.
Sutherland Shire Council spent more than $117,000 in legal costs in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the hall being built, it was revealed at a council meeting this week.
The NSW Land and Environment Court approved the application after the Exclusive Brethren made a number of amendments to its original design.
The Heathcote Gospel Trust representing the Exclusive Brethren lodged the application in December 2011 for a meeting hall on a 2.35-hectare site at the western end of Forum Drive, Heathcote.
The site had been vacant Crown land and since 2000 was managed by Landcom, which proposed to subdivide the site for residential allotments.
The Exclusive Brethren bought the site in 2009.
The proposed 645-square-metre hall would host meetings ranging from 35 worshippers on Mondays and Sundays to 130 on Tuesdays and 250 on Thursdays. Regional meetings of between 250 to 400 people would be held every three weeks and an occasional meeting for a maximum of 900 invitation-only worshippers would be held ‘‘not more than once a year’’.
Residents living near the site formed a committee, Heathcote Residents Against Inappropriate Development, and the council received more than 1300 objections.
The council said the development would have an unacceptable impact on the amenity of the locality due to its visual prominence. It also said the development would have adverse impacts on the natural features and character of the area and there was an unacceptable level of bushfire risk for users and adjoining property owners.
Amendments were made by the Exclusive Brethren but the council still had concerns.
An appeal was lodged in the NSW Land and Environment Court in May last year on the basis of a deemed refusal by the council.
A number of amendments were made, including reducing the height of the building from 14 metres to 9 metres, removing a car park close to residences and proposing acoustic barricades.
While these amendments went some way towards resolving concerns, they did not bring the proposal to a level which could be supported by the council.
A major concern was the bushfire danger.
The council referred the application to the Rural Fire Service for consideration.
The RFS supported the application, subject to the building not being used on days when there was a high, extreme or catastrophic fire hazard. A bushfire management plan was drawn up that included prohibiting meetings for 900 people during the declared bushfire season and closing the building on days when there was a total fire ban.
Residents who made a submission were allowed to address the court.
A number of residents were quite emotional about the proposal and its impacts on their property and the surrounding area.
But the court upheld the appeal, noting the amendments and the bushfire management plan.
The court was “satisfied that while there are identified likely adverse impacts of the development, they are not such that consent should be refused”.
Residents’ spokesman Warren Lang said it was disappointing that “privacy, the amenity of the area, quietness and traffic concerns have been overlooked by the court”.
“And we are really disappointed with the RFS, who appeared to make the decision without considering the community or the local emergency services,” he said.
A NSW Rural Fire Service spokesman said the council requested advice about the bushfire safety aspects of the application.
“The NSW RFS is not the consent authority for DAs of this nature. It is important to note that the NSW RFS can only provide advice on bushfire safety issues and that advice is based on the planning for bushfire protection standards that apply across NSW,” he said.
