2 months ago
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A plan to convert part of a public park into a private school in Melbourne’s outer north threatens to turn sour as residents and the council both claim they’ve been blindsided by the proposal.
Melbourne’s thousands-strong Assyrian community – many of whom fled war and persecution in Iraq and Syria – has sought for more than three years to open a Christian school, driven by a desire to preserve culture and the endangered Assyrian language.
Hume councillor Sam Misho (front left), Assyrian school planning committee member Hindreen Youkhana and community members in parkland put forward as a possible school site.Credit: Simon Schluter
But the quest is quickly becoming a game of political finger-pointing, after the Allan government nominated council-owned open space as a favourable school site, alarming nearby residents and stirring anger among Hume City councillors who were cut out of early talks about the proposal.
The stand-off comes more than a year after the planning minister blocked the Assyrian church from developing land in nearby Yuroke that they had bought for the purpose of building the proposed St Joseph’s Christian College.
The state government’s latest plan only became public last week, after Liberal-aligned Hume councillor Sam Misho raised the issue ahead of a council meeting, after learning the state government had already explored the land offer with Assyrian community representatives.
The site is part of Mt Aitken Reserve, a 19-hectare public park in Greenvale that opened in 2023.
Hundreds of Assyrian community members filled the council meeting, including Assyrian Church of the East Bishop Mar Benyamin Elya, the most senior Assyrian Christian figure in Victoria.
Members of the Assyrian community spoke of their desire to preserve culture and language in the face of persecution in their Middle Eastern homelands. One man told of coming to Australia after his family was abducted by ISIS and their village was destroyed.
But councillors said the land is not for sale.
Misho urged the Victorian government to come clean on whether it had undertaken any preliminary investigations of the site’s feasibility. He said the government was giving the community false hope.
“We are not selling the land,” Misho said. “We’re asking the state government, this hope that you gave this community, was it fair dinkum or was it nothing but a mere bagatelle?”
Hindreen Youkhana, a member of the Assyrian school planning committee, said the government was working with the community in goodwill to find a solution, but the path forward was still unclear.
“The Assyrian language is a UNESCO-listed endangered language,” he said.
“If you put that in context, we preserve grass that is endangered. We’re talking of a nation that pretty much is at the brink of extinction if they don’t get the support to be preserved.”
The community’s first bid to open a school in Yuroke, on Melbourne’s north-western fringe, ended in frustration when the Department of Transport and Planning objected to the proposal, arguing it would cause traffic safety problems on Mickleham Road.
Youkhana said the community did everything it could to try to satisfy the department’s concerns.
“No matter what we tried and how many times we changed plans and updated and met all planning policies, the goalposts kept on changing, and it was an evolving subjective expectation from the department,” Youkhana said.
Assyrian Christian Schools Victoria appealed the department’s ruling in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal but lost, in a decision published in April.
Greenvale Residents Association president Tamara Nolan said residents had been blindsided by the proposal to open a school on the edge of Mt Aitken Reserve.
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“It would be extraordinary to have parkland potentially rezoned into a school without consultation,” Nolan said.
“Residents are a bit baffled by the whole idea of a school replacing parklands when we are desperate for parkland. We’ve got such a growing community out here that we need the space.”
Merri Creek Management Committee executive officer Bernadette Thomas said the reserve was a poor location for any kind of development.
“The site needs to be protected for open space and for its cultural significance for First Peoples,” Thomas said.
“It’s a prized conservation area that should be revegetated and brought back as close as possible to its pre-colonial state for local people to enjoy.”
An Allan government spokesperson referred questions to the Department of Transport and Planning, who said: “Any decision on the site is the responsibility of the council.”
Liberal MP for Northern Metropolitan Evan Mulholland – who collected almost 5000 signatures on a petition for an Assyrian school last year – said the government’s approach was one of “chaos and desperation”.
“After rejecting the school at the Yuroke site and forcing the church to take the government to VCAT at great expense, the government is quite clearly now attempting to handball their own failure and blame onto Hume City Council by requesting they flog off a public park,” Mulholland said.
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