Imagine if local residents objected to plans to build a mosque in their street. Imagine if they claimed that Muslims don’t integrate into the broader community, that multiple daily prayers would be a noise and traffic nuisance and that deception was being practised. The media and the activist left would have fits. The outraged screeches would be deafening.
Which is, in fact, exactly what we’ve seen before, in such cases.
But when it’s a slightly kooky Christian group, object away.
A proposal by the Exclusive Brethren to build a church hall on a residential street in Havelock North has been met with opposition by locals, who question the group’s intentions.
The Hastings Gospel Trust Incorporated has applied to Hastings District Council for a resource consent to build the church and carpark on the 758sqm section at 32 Reynolds Road […]
The proposed church hall will be single-storey and have a floor area of 88sqm, with a car park for 12 cars.
The “church hall” looks pretty much like a house, really.
The hall would be used on Sunday morning for a 6am communion service and on Monday evenings no later than 8pm for prayer meetings, with a maximum of 45 people expected to attend.
A 1.8m high noise fence will surround the whole site to reduce noise […]
The four submissions raised a long list of issues, including the noise, the loss of an established residential property in a time of housing shortage, the fact the application was for a non-residential purpose for people who live outside the neighbourhood, and that the hall will be for people “who refuse to associate with the neighbours and do not welcome them at their premises does not reflect the existing tight-knit community of Reynolds Road”.
Now, I’m no fan of the Brethren’s beliefs, but they rarely make bad neighbours. After all, what’s so wrong about people who are quiet and keep to themselves?
Among the opponents is Bruce Robertson, one of several residents who said they’d been misled by one of the church members when the property was purchased.
“He said the property wouldn’t be substantially altered and was going to be a house for his son to get on the property ladder. That was clearly not the intention. We also doubt that this chapel would be used for just two meetings a week. No-one invests what will be around $1million for a place to do that,” Robertson said.
Given property prices in New Zealand, $1m doesn’t seem an exactly exorbitant sum to build a small building on a suburban block.
There are eight other small Brethren chapels, some of which were converted houses, elsewhere in Hastings as well as a main church.
[Church member and property co-owner Andrew Bishop] said his group had not encountered similar opposition in other locations and the residents’ concerns were unfounded […]
He said residents may feel they had been misled because one of the church members involved in the purchase had originally thought he may have used the house for his son if consent could not be granted for the church and “I think what he said might have been misunderstood.”
Stuff
Whatever we may think of the Brethren’s beliefs, there are far worse people you could have for neighbours.
After all, it could have been bought by Kainga Ora.