Four parking spaces rejected for 52-student Auburn facility

A four-space car park could not safely handle drop-off and pick-up for 52 students, six staff and additional volunteers at a proposed community facility in Auburn, the Cumberland Local Planning Panel found.

The panel refused Development Application 2026/0082 for 68 Kihilla Road, which sought to demolish existing structures and build a two-storey community facility. The proposal included Saturday education activities, a commercial kitchen for community food distribution and operations linked to the mosque at 2 Argyle Street.

The panel found the application relied on the adjoining mosque site for parking for cooks and Saturday teaching staff, student prayers from 12.30pm to 1pm and student lunches from 1pm to 2pm. The 2 Argyle Street land was not included in the application.

It said the two sites and their uses were interrelated, but had not been assessed together. The application also did not address the existing approval and conditions applying to the mosque and residential use at 2 Argyle Street.

Those conditions were issued by the Land and Environment Court in 1999. They included a maximum of 150 people on the site at one time, no more than 15 social gatherings a year and restrictions on car parking use.

The panel found the four spaces and reversing area would have to handle parking, student drop-off and pick-up, weekday food deliveries and collection of food boxes for community distribution. It rejected a traffic assessment based on a one-day survey and found the proposed queuing arrangements unrealistic.

The applicant’s traffic report assumed a “kiss and ride” arrangement. But the panel said children, including some as young as five, would need to be escorted to the first floor and signed in. It also found that Argyle Street was narrow and that the submitted management plan did not explain how staggered drop-off and pick-up would work.

The panel said a circular drop-off and pick-up arrangement might be possible if the mosque land were included, but the effects on mosque operations, parking and traffic on adjoining streets would need to be assessed.

It said it supported a facility for the Dawoodi Bohra Community Masjid Mosque community, including the food-distribution program and Saturday classes. A future application would need to treat the community facility and mosque as one interrelated development and address any required changes to the mosque’s consent. People who lodged submissions are to be notified.