Wagga City Council, community, air fears over $8 million Coptic Christian Church proposed for Lloyd

At a meeting of the Southern Regional Planning Panel on Wednesday council, community members and panel members questioned if it should go ahead.

Wagga's Coptic Christian community submitted plans in 2021 for an extravagant new church development on an overgrown plot of land in Lloyd.

The proposal includes a 400-seat church, a separate Sunday school building with the same capacity, a basketball court and a playground,

But the sheer scale of the building has concerned both council and residents of the area.

The development would lie on a 12,000 square metre plot and have a uniform height of 7.5 metres, with an additional 5m in height to accommodate towers, spires and crosses above the main church structure.

Addressing the panel, Wagga City Council presented the case that although the church would provide social benefit to the Coptic community and complies with the zoning, its size and scale would not be in keeping with the "residential character" and "the form, massing and bulk of the development will have a significant detrimental impact to the streetscape".

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They recommended the application be refused.

Lloyd resident and former police officer Wayne Speers said in his "expert opinion" the church would bring "undesirables into our nice quiet community" and "crime will increase".

He also worried about the effect it may have on traffic in the area and the value of his home

Fellow resident Brett Koschell told the panel the "mammoth" church complex would be "extremely out of character" for the area and would tower over the surrounding houses.

He worried the potential noise could impact his family's mental health and about potential "anti-social behaviour" brought by the basketball court.

The "sheer bulk and scale" of the build will be "very imposing", he said, and should be further away from existing residences.

Michael Tadros, the man behind the proposal, told the meeting his church bought the land from the Catholic Church who had always planned that the site to be used for a place of worship, even before any suburb arose.

The scale of proposal plans for future growth of the congregation - currently 196 members - and he attempted to allay fears over noise and unruly behaviour by invoking his Christian faith.

"The parishioners espouse the morals and values of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is not only compassion, and not only to deal with others in a good way, but above all to have love," he said.

He added there have never been any concerns raised by neighbours of the church's current location in Turvey Park.

The panel - comprising five people including Wagga councillors Amelia Parkins and Mick Henderson - echoed the concerns of council and the community members during their questioning, leaving the future of the project in question.

The planning panel will hand down their decision within seven days.

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