Brindabella Christian College’s junior school building. One approval condition is still to be met. Photo: SQC Group.
The embattled Brindabella Christian College has been ordered to provide updated design drawings for its junior school building more than eight years after it was conditionally approved.
Last month, the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal ordered that an ACT Government Controlled Activity Order be issued to force BCC to finally comply with a condition of the 2016 approval of the school building that it lodge within 28 days a full set of drawings addressing minor inconsistencies concerning notations and the identification of existing buildings.
The issue was raised in ACAT in August this year by the Community for Constitutional Reform at Brindabella Christian College (Reform BCC) after Access Canberra refused to enforce the condition, along with the Lyneham private school’s failure to remove two demountable buildings as required by the DA approval.
Those buildings have now been removed, but the issue of the inconsistent plans remained until the Territory Planning Authority provided a full list of the drawings to ACAT so it could approve the form of the order.
The school has until 3 December to lodge the updated drawings with TPA for approval. They include the siting of the building, site plan, floor plans, elevations, sections and utilities.
Reform BCC said in a statement in August that the school’s failure to comply with the conditions of the 2016 approval had left doubts over the accuracy of its site plans and raised issues of general safety and fire management.
“The fact they weren’t complied with has left a legacy of inaccurate and incomplete drawings being relied upon by government entities such as ICON, ACTEW and TCCS, as well as the Fire Engineer in subsequent approvals and assessments, and the school potentially over-occupying the campus, resulting in the school community being uncertain about the school’s compliance, safety and adequacy of services and facilities,” the spokesperson said.
Reform BCC and the Lyneham Community Association have been fighting a running battle with the company behind the school, Brindabella Christian Education Limited, over governance, financial administration, and planning and development issues, including an unapproved sealed car park.
Both parties have been forced to take matters to ACAT because of a lack of government enforcement of its own rules and conditions.
Last month, ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry delivered an ultimatum to BCC to get its house in order or face serious consequences, using a new regulation for the first time to compel BCC to show that it could be compliant.
Ms Berry wrote to the school on 3 September, giving it six weeks to provide a plan for and evidence of it meeting a raft of conditions to comply with its regulatory obligations.
She said the regulator within the Education Directorate had advised of breaches around governance and financial viability, including how the board, chaired by Greg Zwajgenberg, had been reporting for the school.
In April, it was revealed that the Administrative Appeal Tribunal had imposed conditions around governance and financial reporting on the school in an agreement with the Federal Minister for Education.
The school had appealed a 2021 finding by a delegate for the Federal Minister that Brindabella Christian Education Limited was not a “fit and proper person” to operate the school, which receives more than $10 million a year in public funding.
Mr Zwajgenberg told Region in September that Ms Berry had been misinformed and Reform BCC had only complicated the situation with its ACAT actions.
The 19 October election may interfere with Ms Berry’s deadline, but BCC’s fate will be in the hands of the incoming government.
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