Auburn facility refused after plan relied on adjoining mosque site

A proposed community facility for 52 students, six staff and volunteers at 68 Kihilla Road, Auburn has been refused because its application relied on the adjoining mosque site at 2 Argyle Street without including that land in the proposal.

Development Application 2026/0082 covered only 68 Kihilla Road, but the Cumberland Local Planning Panel found the facility depended on 2 Argyle Street for parking for cooks and Saturday teaching staff, student prayers from 12.30pm to 1pm, and student lunch from 1pm to 2pm. Food prepared at the proposed facility would also support mosque services and events.

The panel said the two sites and their uses were interrelated, but the application was not lodged in a form that allowed them to be assessed together. It also found the proposal did not address the existing consent for the mosque and residential use at 2 Argyle Street, including conditions issued by the Land and Environment Court in 1999.

Those conditions included a maximum of 150 people on the site at one time, no more than 15 social gatherings each year and limits on how parking could be used. The application did not include a concurrent modification to the consent for the mosque and dwelling.

The proposal’s four parking spaces and reversing area were also intended to handle drop-off and pick-up for the Saturday education use. The panel found that inadequate for 52 students, six staff and the additional volunteers needed to manage arrivals and departures.

The panel noted that children as young as five would need to be escorted to the first floor and signed in. It also found Argyle Street was narrow, the traffic assessment relied on an inadequate one-day survey and the proposed management plan did not explain how staggered drop-off and pick-up would work.

A fresh development application treating the community facility and mosque as one interrelated development would be required to consider additional uses and changed operations at 2 Argyle Street. People who lodged submissions are to be notified of the refusal.