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Council backs Don Bosco campaign … but clock is ticking
Owners will be asked to extend sale deadline to explore other options
Mark Phillips
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The campaign to save Don Bosco in Brunswick has released a vision for the site which could be redeveloped for high-rise apartments while retaining the much-loved youth centre.
While it is highly speculative, the proposal is intended to highlight how a new owner could profitably repurpose the Sydney Road site without losing a community asset.
But the idea would most likely be contingent on the state government and Merri-bek Council imposing conditions on any future development to ensure community facilities were provided.
On Wednesday night, the council resolved to urge the property’s Catholic Church owners to extend the sale deadline “to allow for evaluation of alternative solutions to ensure the site continues as a youth space”.
The property’s owners, the Salesians of Don Bosco, put it on the market late last month for an expected price of $10-20 million.
An expressions of interest campaign for the sale of the 2971 square metre property is set to close on August 20.
A hostel and youth centre has operated on the site since 1940 after it was bequeathed to the Salesians by its first owners, the Danelli family.
The religious order says it needs to sell the site, which occupies almost a full block north of Albion Street, to fund future compensation payments to survivors of historical abuse by members of the Salesians going back decades.
The council resolution seeks to buy some time to pursue several options including selling off other church assets that would have less impact on children and young people’s wellbeing, working with the state and federal governments to secure the future of the site, or making a condition of the sale retaining the site’s current role as a hostel and youth centre.
It also commits the council to communicating with relevant state and federal government ministers and local MPs to use what influence they have to keep the site as a free space for children, young people and families.
But the resolution passed by a majority of councillors does not call for the Salesians to stop selling the property.
Members of a hastily put together community campaign who were in the public gallery at Wednesday’s meeting applauded the resolution.
The Save Don Bosco campaign tabled a petition which now has more than 6000 signatures at the council meeting.
Petition organiser Jeremy Zylberberg told councillors that Don Bosco played a crucial role as an affordable place where parents and carers could take their children to socialise, exercise and play.
“We should not downplay the needs of young people for a club, a place to connect, for play, for physical activity and let us not stand by today and let this valuable community space disappear,” he said.
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Another member of the campaign, Mark Evenhuis, said there was still a window of opportunity to prevent the youth centre from closing.
He said options could include Development Victoria or a community housing organising purchasing the site to build high-density housing with provision for a youth centre, or for the council to impose conditions on any future development that would allow extra building height in exchange for gifting the youth centre to the community.
“All we’re asking for is that Council fight for Don Bosco’s future as hard as this community loves the place,” he said. “But the clock is ticking.”
Brunswick West Councillor Ella Svensson, who moved the resolution at Wednesday night’s meeting, said while the council could not ultimately determine the future of Don Bosco, it should use what powers it had to fight for it to continue as a youth centre.
“We can work with the community and with relevant decision makers, and we can make it clear that Merri-bek Council supports keeping this important youth space open and accessible,” she said.
“The community has already shown us how much Don Bosco means to them. Council now needs to show everybody that we have heard you.”
Pascoe Vale Councillor Oscar Yildiz said he knew from personal experience of his own youth how important a space like Don Bosco is for the community.
“Back in the early-70s we had nowhere to go … we would walk all the way [from Coburg] to Don Bosco,” he said.
“It was our saviour because if we didn’t have Don Bosco, I don’t know where I and some of my mates would have ended up. So closing that place is going to be extremely sad if it does actually happen.”
In addition to the council advocacy, the Save Don Bosco campaign is also encouraging supporters to directly contact the the head of the Australia-Pacific Province of the Salesians, Father Peter Hoang, to ask for the sale deadline to be extended.
Brunswick Voice understands at least three potential buyers have inspected the Don Bosco site since it was put on the market.
A spokesman for the Salesians said on Friday afternoon that the order had not received any correspondence from the council and was unable to comment at this stage.
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