Narrabundah NIMBYs fight Macedonian church development

Just to bring this up to date: Incomprehensibly ACTPLA approved a 60 plus unit DA involving three story units in which one couldn’t swing a cat and which would block out the sun over most of the Winter day to current residents and would make a traffic nightmare out of the current stressed Leahy Close/Dalrymple/Goyder complex. Large numbers of Bundah and Red Hill residents objected – nothing to do with the church but to the development and last month the AAT disallowed the ACTPLA approval after substantial hearings where ACTPLA and the developers sat cheek by jowl opposed by the ressis represented pro bono by Chris Erskine.

Hopefully the ACT Gov won’t appeal and, with an eye on the approaching elections, and while trumpeting its environmentally friendly credentials, will think more closely about appropriate development applications. And the MOC and its developer mates will arrive at a good development with fewer single storey units on a commanding position – which would bring in just as much money anyway as the 60 plus piled up shoeboxes.

If these guys can get away with it, then Federal Golf Course should be able to sell bits of land to help fund with their infrastructure problems.

I remember when they were building that church, when it was still in the frame stage, some local school students made a big model of a bird, and stuck it in the domed bit. The Maccas totally over-reacted, like it was a racial attack or soemthing, rather than a quaint practical joke on the funny shape of the church. The kids were aghast at the reaction, and publicly apologised to the Maccas.

I;s not racism. Narrabundah has a pretty strong community group that has its hand in community events, projects, gardens etc. They just like the suburb as it is.

Macedonian Church Development

· The lease the Macedonian Church had was a concessional lease i.e. originally granted for religious purposes in the 1980s paying rates @ 10c per year. The original proposal was to split the land, develop 55 units and renovate the church, build a bishops residence and community hall with the proceeds. All other community groups normally raise money from their members. The issue is should they make a windfall out of selling a concessional lease to make a profit of $3 million. Another dodgy land deal like the Hungarian Club on a concessional lease!
· The traffic nightmare of the intersection of Goyder & Dalrymple will get worse making ambos go the long way around to access the aged care facilities down Goyder St. NIMBY for the oldies swift transfer to the hospital !
· Leahy Close and Goyder St will be absolutely jammed with cars when there is a wedding. Some neighbours will lose their amenity and their real estate will lose value because of lost views. NIMBYs is a derogatory term that fails to mention that a community is being destroyed, their previous enjoyable home has lost what it was when they bought it. The neighbours have very few rights when a block of flats are proposed, the rights lay with the people who will move into the new block of flats.

I suspet that church developments are a cause for community concern in most places. I don’t think that it’s an anti-church thing, rather worry about traffic and such.

If NIMBYs are really just an anoying minority, wouldn’t it be easier if the implicit ‘majority’ who want any sort of development, regardless of what it is, right on their door-step, without consultation, just put their hand up it would make town planning a hell of a lot easier.

But seriously how often do they have big events like fetes anyways? I used to live around the corner from them and the only time there seemed to be a lot of cars around was on Sundays (and even then there was still plenty of street parking available if you could be bothered walking 60 seconds further away).

I don’t think it’s correct to say that this is strictly NIMBYism. The actual Macedonian Orthodox Church has been there for ages, and I don’t think anyone objects to it. However when they have functions like Fetes, the limitations of parking in the area are readily apparent, and make it much more difficult to get to and from the many units in Leahy Close. I suspect people are worried that it’s going to make the traffic like that all the time.

Leahy Close is already pretty high density residential living, so I’m not sure 50-odd extra flats are going to make too much difference. But I don’t think the fact that they are Macedonian Orthodox is a relevant factor.

Claims of racism will only be accepted if the building being objected to is a mosque.

Not that islam is a race of course