Benjamin Millar
Temple
A new Buddhist complex will be built in Mount Wallace to provide Melbourne’s growing Karen population with a place to hold weekly meditation and a celebrate annual festivals.
The Melbourne Karen Buddhist Association (MKBA) lodged plans last year for the $2 million complex on a 32-hectare site on Geelong-Ballan Road.
Featuring a new meditation hall, dining hall and pagoda, the project also includes longer term plans to process the site’s existing blue-gum plantation and convert the land to food production.
Moorabool councilors unanimously voted to approve the plan at last week’s development assessment committee meeting.
The MKBA intends to use the monastery complex to assist with teaching people more about the Karen Buddhist faith.
The existing three-bedroom dwelling on the property will be used as a residence for two Karen Buddhist monks and a temporary place of assembly for weekly meditation sessions while construction of the larger complex takes place.
The proposed pavilion-style dining hall will have seating capacity for 200 people and be used for up to six annual festivals.
The meditation hall will be used for weekly meditation for up to 30 people.
A 15-metre tall pagoda is planned, as well as a 60-space carpark.
A council report on the proposal recommended the project be supported.
“The development is of suitable design and scale for the rural setting, whilst the use is limited in its intensity and subject to permit conditions relating to ensuring suitable control of the use and its amenity impacts, would ensure avoidance of detriment to this rural locality,” it stated.
“The proposal is appropriately compliant in respect to traffic and parking requirements, and environmental impacts.”
Victoria is home to a growing Karen community, an ethnic minority group from Burma that has arrived in Australia as refugees from camps on the Thai border.
More than 3000 of the 5600 Burma-born people currently residing in Australia are in Melbourne, almost half living in the Wyndham area.
