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Islamic group seeks approval to change community centre to place of worship

A DEVELOPMENT in Padstow, approved as an community centre would become an Islamic public place of worship, under new plans.

The site of the proposed Islamic place of public worship on Enterprise Ave, Padstow.
The site of the proposed Islamic place of public worship on Enterprise Ave, Padstow.

A DEVELOPMENT approved as an community centre would become an Islamic public place of worship, under new plans.

The complex, which will replace a warehouse on Enterprise Ave in Padstow, got the green light in the Land and Environment Court in January last year.

However the 2000sq m facility — to be decked out with a gym, sport courts, classrooms and underground car park — was approved on the condition it could not be used a public place of worship.

In handing down her decision approving the community centre commissioner Sue Morris said she was “satisfied” it would not be used as a mosque.

The United Muslim Association has now submitted plans to the council to change its use from a community facility with a small prayer room to a place of worship with community facilities.

The reason for the change was to “service the growing needs of the Muslim community in Padstow and the broader Canterbury Bankstown Local Government Area,” according to an environmental report prepared for UMA.

“The UMA have suffered the loss of a mosque elsewhere in Sydney,” the reports says.

“To accommodate the needs of their members the use of the prayer room as a place of public worship is proposed.”

UMA calls the proposal a place or worship, which includes a community facility, not a mosque.

Under the proposal the capacity for worshippers during the day would be 50 people and 70 in the afternoon.

However this would jump to 204 people, 65 more than the entire approved community centre, during midday Friday prayer.

Car parking would jump from 79 spaces to 140.

Riverwood-based UMA originally intended to use the land for a mosque to hold 5000 worshippers, which attracted significant community opposition.

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At the time the group used a fundraising appeal to raise $3.25 million to build it.

However despite advertising the development as a mosque, UMA later lodged a development application for the community centre.

Sheik Shady Alsuleiman spoke in defence of the community centre plan when the warehouse site was targeted by anti-Islam vandals in 2014.

The Express contacted UMA for comment.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/the-express/islamic-group-seeks-approval-to-change-community-centre-to-place-of-worship/news-story/053b86f26ef97905d9b8d0e49f4ef673