Plan to replace 120-year-old church with a boarding house
An inner west church that is almost 120-years-old could be knocked down and replaced with low cost rental housing under a new plan before council.
Inner West
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There are new plans to knock down a Marrickville church that is more than 100 years old and replace it with a 55-room boarding house.
The plan is to replace the Church of Christ at 389 Illawarra Rd with five levels of low-cost rental housing.
The church is currently only used once a week for bible study.
The site is owned by the charity Fresh Hope, also known as NSW Churches of Christ, and is a registered social housing provider.
Under the plan a single-storey dwelling house next door to the church would also be knocked down for the development.
The new $9.5 million, six-storey multi-use development would include two ground-level retail spaces, five floors of boarding rooms, communal areas, four carparking spaces and 30 bicycle spaces.
Rent for a room in the boarding house will be priced at 20 per cent below market value.
Four units on level one will provide short term accommodation for people with special needs.
Fresh Hope will partner with Nightingale Housing for their first NSW project.
The housing provider is described in the application as “environmentally, financially and socially sustainable housing at zero profit”.
The Nightingale housing model is based on equity investors, capped project profits, designs that reduce operating and maintenance costs, transparent project costs for investors and purchasers and a 100 per cent fossil fuel-free building operation.
GoGet have also committed to free membership for Nightingale Housing tenants and one accessible parking space will be provided per 10 boarding rooms.
In the pre-DA meeting, council said they do not support the demolition of the church due to its heritage value and “aesthetic and social significance”.
A decision about whether the church is a heritage item will be handed down with the Inner West LEP scheduled for completion in 2021.
The church was proposed to be added to the heritage items list in the Marrickville LEP in 2015 but this has not yet occured.
According to the applicant Fresh Hope the church does not display sufficient historical significance.
The application also states: “With the site only used once a week for a bible study group the church exhibits no significant characteristic in relation to the cultural or natural history of
the area.”
Under the ‘Building Your Ministry’ header, the Fresh Hope website reads: “At Fresh Hope we can support you through the process of buying, selling, extending or refurbishing a church property.”
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