By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A church almost three times taller than the Green Wedge Zone’s preferred height limit has been controversially approved in Lyndhurst.
The proposed Coptic church at a rural setting in 785 Thompsons Road was passed during a heated debate at Greater Dandenong Council, in which a Greens councillor reacted angrily to an accusation of being opposed to Christian places of worship.
The church for up to 500 worshippers would have towers of up to 23 metres tall, with a multi-purpose hall, indoor plant nursery, soccer pitch, horse stables, a priest/caretaker’s dwelling and 150-space car park.
Its 13-metre main building is well above the zone’s preferred eight-metre height limit.
At a 25 September meeting, Cr Matthew Kirwan said the council would further damage its reputation by approving the project after a lot of recent “bad press” of its Green Wedge decisions.
He said he supported large churches, temples and mosques and community centres if they are “beneficially” located, such as in a residential zone.
“It’s a case of a good church in the wrong place,” he said.
He said places of worship were permitted in the zone but not such a “massive building” that would dominate the area’s rural character.
“(This is) something that should be in Springvale or Noble Park or Dandenong North – not in the middle of nowhere in the isolated backblocks of Lyndhurst.”
“This won’t just dominate the landscape as buildings in the Green Wedge are not meant to do, it will dwarf everything else.”
Cr Kirwan said the council could expect another intervention by state Planning Minister Richard Wynne, who recently blocked the council’s approval of a “produce market” in Bangholme’s Green Wedge.
Cr Tim Dark claimed Cr Kirwan had no objection to mosques or community centres “but this is a church” – an accusation that was quashed by a point of order.
Cr Zaynoun Melhem told Cr Kirwan: “It’s not up to us to tell the Coptic Church how to design their church”.
He said the church – part of the oldest church denomination in the world – was an allowed use, and there were already four places of worship in Greater Dandenong’s Green Wedge.
It would be the only Coptic Church in Greater Dandenong to serve its strong following in the municipality.
It would be located near “thousands of people” set to move into nearby housing estates under the Thompsons Road Precinct Structure Plan.
Cr Melhem said the applicant had changed the landscaping, car park and siting of structures to provide a less imposing proposal.
“It’s a no-brainer,” he said.
“We do want community soccer pitches, we do want places to congregate … we want places with lots of car-parking.”
City planning director Jody Bosman told the meeting the Green Wedge’s preferred eight-metre height limit was designed to maintain an appropriate “open sky vista” but wasn’t “proscriptive”.
Objector Barry Ross, of Defenders of the South-East Green Wedge, said the group would lodge an appeal at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Triburnal.
“We are very disappointed that the officer’s report and those councillors who supported the proposal so readily dismissed the recommendations of council’s own Green Wedge Management Plan.
“We believe the bulk and scale of the development would be completely out of place in the open rural countryside.”
