Exclusive Brethren get consent for gatherings

The Exclusive Brethren Church in Glenelg St. Photo by Peter McIntosh
The Exclusive Brethren Church in Glenelg St. Photo by Peter McIntosh

The Exclusive Brethren has won its fight to hold regular gatherings of up to 650 worshippers in Dunedin after showing it can love its neighbour.

The Dunedin City Council's hearings committee, in a decision released yesterday, granted a variation to an existing consent for the church at 81A Glenelg St, in Kaikorai Valley.

The decision would allow regular gatherings of up to 650 worshippers, and one annual event for up to 850 people, with conditions designed to minimise the disruption for neighbours.

The church had sought to vary its existing consent to authorise gatherings that had been taking place for years.

The move came after the church, owned by the Glenelg Gospel Trust, was the subject of complaints from some neighbours and threats of enforcement action by council staff.

Kerry Wallace, a trustee and church member, told last month's consent hearing the church had been consented and built to accommodate up to 500 worshippers in 1992.

But its gatherings had grown since then and so had traffic problems and complaints from neighbours, he said.

The church had responded by developing its own traffic management plan, among other steps to ease problems.

Those steps appeared to have swayed the committee, which in its decision noted the church had ''responded positively'' to neighbours' concerns.

That had ''significantly'' reduced the amount of opposition to the church's application to vary its existing consent, the committee found.

The variation was granted with conditions, including limiting gatherings to no more than 650 people for special Sunday services, held up to 20 times a year, and to small numbers for other services.

The church would also be permitted to hold one function a year catering for up to 850 people and lasting up to three days.

A traffic management plan would continue to be a requirement, and attendance figures would be monitored by the church and forwarded to the council every six months.

The church's application had come with the written approval of 13 neighbours, and attracted six submissions - three of them opposed - when notified on a limited basis.

The church's trust has also filed a separate consent application to develop a new facility on 5ha of land at 326 Factory Rd, Mosgiel.

chris.morris@odt.co.nz

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement