Griffith City Council have voted to approve the Terra Ag development application at an extraordinary meeting of council.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The matter will now progress to conciliation where a planning agreement will be drawn up.
At an extraordinary meeting last night, council heard from objectors and Terra Ag themselves before moving to a vote.
Griffith City Council voted in favour of approving the development application subject to conditions of consent laid out by council.
From here, the matter will move to a conciliation process where they will seek to finalise a number of issues, such as the of number of sealed car park spaces, a landscaping plan and extent of sealing of internal road ways.
Terra Ag had promised Griffith City Council they will withdraw their current development application next to the Sikh temple, in exchange for another one being approved.
The new lot would see the business move its site to the corner of Kidman Way and Thorne road, across the road from the Temple.
The agronomy company had taken Council to the court in a bid to reverse the development application (DA) refusal to build its business next to a Sikh Temple off the Kidman Way.
While the application for the new site has yet to be lodged, council’s agenda says the promise was made “in good faith”.
The original proposed development had caused outrage within the Sikh and wider communities.
Griffith’s Sikh community had argued it was inappropriate for the development it be located next to a sacred space.
Both parties attended mediation on Monday, January 29. The agenda released before Thursday’s meeting indicated the parties had failed to come to a formal agreement during mediation.
RELATED:
Griffith City Council General Manager Brett Stonestreet said the Sikh community had been involved throughout the mediation and conciliation processes.
“The Sikh community were afforded the opportunity to address Councillors at the Meeting of the 23 January and the Sikh community then participated in the conciliation conference held on Monday 29 January,” he said.
“The Mayor, in light of the length of time that has transpired during the determination of this Development Application, determined that the matter should expedited in the interest of both applicants and objectors and hence called an Extraordinary Meeting of Council.”
Full story coming tonight.