Minarah College

Application Details
Applicant Name: Green Valley Islamic College Ltd
(“Minarah College, Catherine Field”)
Application Number: SSD-30759158
Project Name: Minarah College
Dear Sir/Madam
- I am an elderly person living in Catherine Fields. There are 3 generations of my family that live in Catherine Field, my self, my daughter and my grandchildren. We have all lived in Catherine Field for a very very long time.
- I strongly object against the Minarah College proposal because it will cause so much hardship to the residents living in the Catherine Field community and it will be unethical to impose such hardships on hard working residents who reside in this area.
- Sears 20: Social Impact: In relation to the Social Impact Assessment Report titled “Proposed New Education Establishment – Minarah College Catherine Field, 268 & 278 Catherine Fields Road Catherine Field” prepared by Sarah George Consulting. It
lists on page iii point 4.0 Community Consultation methods of community consultation that was undertaken. This report is misleading, as I never received any letters in my letterbox informing me of the Minarah College proposal, I was unaware of any online session, I never participated in any discussion to discuss the school. No one has reached out to me to discuss the school. I have not seen any advertisements on the TV or newspapers advertising the school. I strongly object against the proposal because of the Catherine Field community lack of awareness in relation to the project and the report paints a false picture of what has actually occurred.
- I strongly object against the Minarah College proposal because I am greatly concerned of the increased traffic this will cause in the area and the adverse impact this will have on the Catherine Field residents who live in the area. The school will cater for over 1500 hundred students who predominantly live outside of Catherine Field. So the State Government is proposing to funnel 1500 students each day and each afternoon, seven days a week into a quite rural community and then expect Catherine Field residents to put up with long traffic lines as they try and get there children to school and themselves to work. This is absolutely crazy and just absurd. Everyone living in Catherine Field will be late to school, late to work, late to medical appointments etc. The report prepared by Ason Group's "Surveyed Traffic Volumes" does not provide an accurate report of the Catherine Field area as it was
prepared during Covid-19 lock downs. The report is misleading and cannot be relied upon. The increased traffic will then cause major issues and delays on Camden Valley Way and Bringelly Road.
- I strongly object against the Minarah College proposal because I want Catherine Field to remain rural. I am strongly concerned of the impact the Minarah College school proposal will have on the environment and the native animals that call Catherine Field Home. Per Page 11 of the Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS") I choose the "Do Nothing" approach.
- I strongly object against the Minarah College proposal because the Minarah College is catering for a Fijian Muslim Community that does not exist in our area. Per page 10 of the EIS report, I do not agree that the Minarah College will provide "social and economic benefits to the Catherine Field community. In fact it will impose immense hardship, impose immense hardship and immense frustration and pain.
- Per Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”), Point 3.1 Project Overview (Pages 31-33). Based on this report, the school will be operating from 7am in the morning to 9pm at night Monday to Friday and on the weekends 9am to 9pm. The school
operating hours are of great concern to me because it will mean that for 7 days a week I will have to deal with noise from the school, traffic congestion from the school etc. For this reason I object to the Minarah College proposal because I and all the other residents of Catherine Field have to deal with stress caused by the constant noise from the school that will run 7 days a week.
- The Minarah College as mentioned above will cause great traffic jams with cars lining up on Catherine Field Road to get there children and themselves in and out of the school and too work. This will impact emergency service vehicles who need to access the area because they will be stuck in a traffic jam. This will cost lives.
In conclusion, I strongly object to the Minarah College proposal for the many reasons stated above.

Many Thanks

See objection to the development from Community Group attached.

I do not want the school project to go ahead as it will take me longer to get to my school when there is more traffic here. Our roads cannot take more cars as there are so many potholes and flooding. If we have another 1000 cars twice per day, we will have lots more potholes and the roads will be a mess. Please don't build the school here.

I object and my reasons are attached.

Catherine field cannot support any development of this capacity, The increase of traffic and noise pollution 7 days a week will destroy our peaceful rural township and cause more damage to the poorly maintained roads in the area , people move into a semi rural area for a life style not to have it turned into a high traffic high noise area, also there is a high risk of flooding to neighbours and roads with the amount of hard surfaces that will be created with this type of construction. Also consider the wild life in the area, we have native Birds ,ducks ,turtles , Possums and Kangaroos , with the increase of traffic more of our native animals will be injured or killed, this already happens along Camden Valley Road.

I oppose to the building of Minarah College in the Catherine Field area.
Please see attached documents.
Thank you

The area in Catherine fields where this is proposed on being located is rural, with at present no interest by council in changing this. There are no street lights, no sewer, no storm water drainage and the roads are atrocious, ridiculously narrow, full of potholes and so poor they are constantly closed with the smallest amount of rain. The stretch if road where this property would need to be entered and located has, in the last 6 months been forcibly closed by authorities 6 times. The property itself has a natural slope and a runway for rain water into the catchment area of Catherine filed, in poor weather conditions, such as now, it cannot cope with the amount of people that would be attending daily at that location - i have been told numbers daily would exceed 1-2 thousand people with extensive growth planned - the words of a establishing a whole new community have been used by the purchasers of this land. There is absolutely no infrastructure in place at all to accommodate and cope with the influx of people this will have on this rural community.
Catherine Filed Road has become a new main road (by default) over the past few years with the restructure of the surround developing areas, its not coping now - it cant take any more traffic, as stated it is disintegrating now, at present today it is undrivable and unsafe, there are areas you have no choice but to cross onto the other side of the road to navigate the holes.Can you imagine what this extra traffic will do to it, plus i presume the addition of heavy buses ect put on to service this rural location.
This simply will be danerous to the users and the current established comminity and i object to its approval - thank you

See my detailed submission attached. Having done detailed reviews on four of the experts reports I found them to contain many inaccuracies and false and misleading statements. They appear to be cut and paste efforts rather than genuine bodies of expert work designed to produce thousands of words of little or no substance to bore people to the point that they stop reading and give up.
I chose to only do four on the basis that four weeks to comment is grossly insufficient to produce quality work in response and I trust that others submit on different topics so a comprehensive review of all documents is achieved.

I fully support this initiative as it will help members of my community immensely in the local areas around the proposed location. I personally have kids and would be definitely looking to make use of its services in future.

We have to drive for at least 20 minutes to the closest Islamic School, which can cause extra traffic congestion during the peak hours. My kids are often late to school due to this ever since we moved towards Gregory Hills.

Moreover the facilities in Austral can often get flooded during rain and this being in the close range will be ideal for my kids and those building towards Camden area.

The new school will be a blessing we were all waiting for. I really hope this school can be built to support the local community.

I believe this project will help create culturally diverse educational facility in the camden region.
As a resident of the area, I believe my kids and lots of other kids that I know of would greatly benefit from this facility.

my oppose of the college letter is attached

People live out here to get away from the craziness of town. It’s a lovely suburb with lovely people. It’s not a very busy / popular area. This school would completely ruin that “isolation”. The roads are not built too hold that much traffic, they aren’t big enough, they aren’t fresh and the speed limits. The school wants to be placed on a main road which is known to flooding and has pot holes everywhere. A school of this size kindergarten through to 12 is just outrageous. A community hall aswell that’s open late everyday??? That’s completely outrageous it’s peoples home too it’s not a city. This school is such a stupid idea being out there. And the fact that it was kept from the residents on that road is astounding and disgusting why is it that every other house got flyers except those on the street? It’s not only a flood prone area, the roads aren’t safe or big enough or built for traffic it would disrupt peoples abilities getting too work and with that hall being able to sleep at night. School would often be closed due to floods and it disrupts those who live and frequent that area. A school of this size should no be placed out there it’s seriously not a fit enough area for it.

I object due to the amount of misleading information. The traffic report, the noise & vibration report are all based on data retrieved during Covid
I do not support this proposal

I object to the State Development proposal for Minarah School at Catherine Field – SSD- 30759158.
Although I’m not currently a resident of Catherine Fields, I lived there with my parents for 18 years and still regularly visit my parents as well as work from my parents home on a regular basis for my employment attending various virtual meetings during work hours. I don’t believe the noise is going to be as per the SEARs requirement of Noise and Vibration have been met as the measured Ambient Noise level assessment was completed during a Covid19 lockdown period. As a result of the school operating hours being 7.00am to 10.00pm Monday to Friday and then again the hours of operation for the weekend, I don’t understand how the additional noise levels of the school from lunch bells and speaker announcements as well as the additional noise from the extra traffic can only have minimal disturbance to the neighbours and surrounding area. These long operating hours for the school will increase the noise and traffic levels will disturb the neighbours and the area of this quiet rural town. This noise may also affect my ability to work from my parents premises.
Another point is I believe that the ‘Overland Flow Assessment Report’ doesn’t meet the requirement of the SEARs report to provide an integrated water management plan. The report indicates that there will be diversion pipes installed to catch the overland flow to Catherine Fields Road. This will only assist the water to flow faster from the Minarah school and cause more flooding quicker on neighbouring properties downstream than what it is already. This year alone Catherine Fields road has been closed off 3 times due to flooding with subsequent closures due to necessary maintenance of the road cause by the flooding and very low road usage compared to when the school goes in. This created an issue for me to get to my parents house to assist them with house and garden maintenance as well as work, as I work from my parents house. I often assist my parents as my father has back issues.
Please consider the above points in my submission to object against the proposal on Minarah college – SSD- 30759158.
I have not made any report able political donations.
Kind Regards
Matt Strassmeir

My name is _______ And I am 12 years old and live on Catherine Fields Road right where the proposal for the school is.
Every day when mum takes me to school in the morning it is an absolute nightmare for us trying to dodge all the potholes and even when they fix them as soon as it rains they are back so they are always there. We live in a beautiful quiet rural area and the roads can’t cope with the amount of people who live here at the moment so I can only imagine how bad they will be if we were to have all the parents of the school kids doing drop off and pick up .
I think it will make our roads very dangerous as they are already dangerous enough to drive on let alone with the extra traffic that would come with the school.
We live in such a nice quiet area and the school would be quite noisy and while I’m at school during the day it’s the weekend noise that is the problem.

Submission relating to: SSD‐30759158
Based on the information provided in the EIS and Supporting Appendices, we object to the development.
The development applicant has failed to engage the local community on the design of the school and has therefore rendered the development out of context of the local character. The evidence for this statement is basically that the development has failed to engage the local community, has failed to understand the local heritage and has opted for a design that is foreign to the culture and heritage of the local community. For example:
Page 64 of the EIS states with respect to design: “Consideration of the three cultures (Aboriginal, Islamic and Fijian) with a key relationship with the school”
 The design of the school is not in keeping with the local community. No effort has been made to design the school to fit into a feature or the heritage of the local community, which is not Fijian/Islamic. According the ABS census 20211, over 70% of Catherine Field has an ancestry that is (in descending order) Australian, English, Italian, Maltese and Chinese. The development does not consider a design that is consistent with the nearby historic "Oran Park house" and there has been no effort to study any heritage in the local community, especially Raby House in Catherine Field which has a pioneering agricultural history dating to the early 1800's.
 No attempt has been made to recognise the significance and architecture of Raby2 House, a Heritage listed homestead in Catherine Field, dating back to c.1820 for the original house and c. 1875 for the main house. We request the architecture reflect the rural heritage and rural nature of Catherine Field, to compliment the aboriginal heritage architecture.
 According to 2021 census data published by ABS3: In Green Valley, Fijian is represented as the third highest country of birth (excluding Australian). Fijian is not listed as an ancestry from anyone in Catherine Field4. In fact, over 70% of Catherine Field has an ancestry that is, in descending order, Australian, English, Italian, Maltese and Chinese.
1 https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find‐census‐data/quickstats/2021/SAL10855 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raby,_Catherine_Field
3 https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find‐census‐data/quickstats/2021/SAL11762 4 https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find‐census‐data/quickstats/2021/SAL10855

 There is also a contrast with the religious composition across the two areas, where Islam makes up 14% of Green Valley, this figure is below 6% in Catherine Field, and based on the ABS ancestry in the point above, none of the 6% of people that identify as Islamic are from a Fijian descent.
1.3 Conclusion:
Clearly, the applicant has failed to engage the local community, has failed to provide a design that is consistent with “Better Placed” by putting forward a design that is the polar opposite to the local colonial heritage and rural lifestyle and ancestral demographic of Catherine Field.
2 Sears 20: Social Impact:
2.1 Background:
EIS page 10 mentions that “The intended outcomes of the project are to:
 reflect Islamic and Fijian and indigenous cultural beliefs
 provide educational opportunities to the local community”
2.2 Response:
As mentioned in 1.2 above, according to the ABS Census 2021 data, how does it serve the community by providing an educational institution for a Fijian Muslim community that does not exist in Catherine Field? Clearly the Catherine Field rural community is being asked to tolerate a development to serve a community that resides outside of Catherine Field. There is no benefit to the local community for this school and for that reason there will be persistent objection. The local community will benefit none from this school.
2.3 Conclusion:
The social impact of this school development on the local community is all downside. There is no benefit to the local community and the demographic of the local community will not demand the school of a Fijian and Islamic focus.
3 Sears 20: Social Impact:
3.1 Background:
The EIS on Page 11 lists the scenarios which were investigated. One of which is “Do nothing option resulting in site remaining predominantly rural, unplanned and unserved.”
3.2 Response:
The Catherine Field community supports the Do‐Nothing approach, which leaves the site “predominantly rural”. The community has chosen Catherine Field as their home for this reason. Although the EIS attempts to list "rural, unplanned and unserved" as a disadvantage, the Catherine Fields community feels the development of the school will erode the main asset of Catherine Field which makes it such a great place to live being “rural”. By the EIS own admission, this project is opposed to the community desire to see it remain rural. We live in Catherine Field to enjoy a quiet rural lifestyle for our parents, our children and our grandchildren.
The Catherine Field community supports the Do‐Nothing approach which leaves the site “unplanned”. The construction and operation of Minarah college will not change the “unplanned” nature of Catherine Field given the development is being proposed without any zoning or allocation for a school as can be observed in nearby Leppington precinct. Leppington precinct has plans for schools. We are opposing Minarah college as there is no town plan for our community to accommodate a school. The construction of the school will still leave Catherine Field “unplanned”.

The Catherine Field community supports the Do‐Nothing approach which leaves the site “unserved”. The construction and operation of Minarah college will not change the “unserved” nature of our Catherine Field given the development:
 Will not result in better roads. There are no upgrades to the roads proposed beyond the foot print of the school.
 Will lead to more traffic almost tripling the local traffic compared to current. The population of Catherine Field will nearly double on any given day given there are just over 1600 local residents and the school population will be almost 1600 people once Stage 5 is complete.
 Offers no water or waste water improvement that would benefit the community. There is no improvement to stormwater amenity. There is no commitment for a sewer to serve the community.
 The architecture is centered around a community that is not in keeping with the local heritage or rural nature of the area
 The local community will not be purchasing education from the school, given they come from a different cultural and religious background to the one that Minarah college will serve.
The proposed development should not go ahead given the development will not change from being “rural, unplanned and unserved”. It will simply become “rural, unplanned and unserved” with a big school to accommodate people from outside our community.
3.3 Conclusion:
Please leave our community “rural, unplanned and unserved” without a big school in it. We prefer it this way compared to remaining rural, unplanned and unserved with a big school that we don’t have a need for.
4 SEARs 20: Social Impact
4.1 Background
The EIS page 11 fails to consider a fourth scenario, where the development takes place outside of our rural Catherine Fields community and located in an area planned for development and for schools, including road, stormwater and waste water sewer infrastructure. One such location is in the Leppington precinct
4.2 Response:
A scenario that has not been investigated is to locate the school in an area that has been rezoned where allotments for schools has already been provisioned. The Leppington5 precinct has plans for 5 school locations. Complete with services and a local plan that accommodates schools (for example, schools are located within walking distance of public sporting fields that can be utilized by schools and local residents. See Figure below extracted from the Leppington Precinct indicative layout plan June 2021. The colored arrows show the location of 5 allotments which are named “indicative school locations”.
5 https://shared‐drupal‐s3fs.s3.ap‐southeast‐2.amazonaws.com/master‐test/fapub_pdf/Indicative+Layout+Plan+‐ +Leppington+Stages+2+and+5.PDF

Figure 1: Leppington Precinct‐ Indicative layout plan6 showing 5 possible locations for schools
4.3 Conclusion:
The development should seek a location that has plans for schools in their design, complete with infrastructure which will support the school and that the local community will benefit from.
6 https://shared‐drupal‐s3fs.s3.ap‐southeast‐2.amazonaws.com/master‐test/fapub_pdf/Indicative+Layout+Plan+‐ +Leppington+Stages+2+and+5.PDF

5 SEARs 13 Stormwater and Wastewater
5.1 Background
Although individual reports have been provided for “Overland Flow” and “Waste Water” there is no Integrated Water Management plan attached to the EIS. This point will predominantly focus on “Appendix U Waste Water”.
5.2 Response to Appendix U Waste Water
Point Raised in EIS or Submission Appendix
Appendix U Page 15: Design assumes 5 days of site use and wastewater generation and 7 days of effluent irrigation as we are advised there is not site use which generated wastewater on the weekend.

As a resident who lives on Catherine Fields Road in Catherine fields, where the proposed school is planning to be built I have massive concerns for this moving forward.
We live at 213 Catherine Fields Road, so quite close to where the propose school will be built and cannot believe the state of the roads as they are let alone how they will be once we allow 1000+ students commuting to and from school on them. With no gutters and drains the roads are dangerous when raining and with the water run off issues cause flooding in many places. The poor quality of roads including pot holes will only be made worse with the tremendous increase in vehicles travelling on it.
The issues we will have with morning and afternoon traffic trying to enter and exit our properties will be horrible.

Another issue relating to this as I mentioned above is the water run off issues we face in the area. During the winter months when we are prone to heavy rain, we see most of our roads flooded and access restricted due to this.

Being on acerage we have septic systems for waste. We are a house hold of three on an acre and have issues with our septic so putting a school in an area that relies on septic is mind boggling to say the least.

The issues that stopped council from allowing this school from being built in other rural areas are the exact same issues we are raising here.

Another worry as a resident close to the proposed site is the noise levels. Understandably school children will make noise during the week and this is not an issue, however the speakers with prayer and the weekend noise is not what our residents signed up to when they moved into this peaceful, spacious, quiet and serene area.

The danger that this school brings with just the road issues alone should be enough to stop it but the negative impact it makes on the residents lives is what should push it over the edge to cease this proposal.

Kind Regards,
Melissa Bugeja
213 Catherine Fields Road Catherine fields
0409 00 44 34

The road are unsuitable please this is why l am objecting to a school being built in Catherine field

The entire road network thoughout Catherine Field is certainly not suitable to be able to cope with an abundance of traffic that a school of this capacity.

When you walk on a normal day the road are extremely unsafe with all the trucks going down there as well this is not a safe place to put a school

There is no were for the waste to go there is no sewage location they will need tanks. This will be a large school this is not a very clean idea

I am objecting to this school being built this is not the right place to put it look at the roads they are horrible the road are extremely unsafe right now let alone with a school being built