by City Council
Clevedon Presbyterian Church is stuck in a holding pattern, waiting on approval from the Manukau City Council to begin a much-needed development project. Amanda Wells reports.
A trust associated with the church, Acorn Parish Holdings, raised $6.7 million to purchase 64 acres on the edge of Clevedon township last year.
But because Clevedon, which is on the southeastern fringe of greater Auckland, doesn’t have a reticulated sewage system, a $150,000 planning study needs to be done before any further development in the area can be approved. The City Council had approved the spending, but then withdrew it from this year’s budget.
Session clerk Neville Guy says, “we’re at the mercy of Manukau City Council.”
A trust was used to buy the site so that subdivided sections could be sold to fund the initial purchase as well as later development and construction. Sixty-four prospective section owners have paid a $100,000 deposit and will pay another $100,000 when the subdivision goes through.
The church had only a six-week window in which to sell enough section subscriptions to raise $6 million. Up till the last week of the subscription period, only 23 had been sold. So the church held an emergency meeting, put out a notice through the schools and rural delivery system, and advertised on Trade Me.
Neville says many of the sections were bought by people unconnected with the church.
The trust intends to gift the land to the church, once the development and subdivision is finalised.
If the council says “no more development,” then the land would have to be sold and refunds given to subscribers.
Since the 1980s, Clevedon Presbyterian has been caught in a repeated pattern of growth-plateau-decline, because of space constraints.
Minister the Rev Mark Chapman says, “we haven’t had enough room for 10 years”.
The church has 180 families on its roll but Neville says, “we can only fit half our adult members at any one time.”
Clevedon’s 11am contemporary service is attended by between 100 and 120 adults, with another 30 attending a more traditional 9.30am service. The 18-25 age group is strongly represented, and the average age of adults at worship is 45. About 15 teenagers do their own thing during the service, and there’s another programme for the 30 under-10-year-olds.
Mark says the things that draw people to Clevedon are its inclusive ethos and its use of contemporary music
“If people are listening to that kind of music [at home], church music needs to have the same kind of sound. Otherwise it’s too foreign to them.”
Mark says about half the congregation come from outside the local area, making Clevedon more of a regional church.
Clevedon village is a hive of activity on Sunday mornings, Mark says, because of a popular market. “If it’s a wet rainy day and the family drive in and there’s nowhere to park, they go home again.”
Only 50 percent of the congregation are there every Sunday, he says. “If a person can’t come on a regular basis, they’ll find somewhere they can go, or they’ll just stop coming.”
“It’s difficult to plan or advertise. There’s no point advertising if people can’t park their cars.”
“We’ve essentially got a waiting list of people waiting to come to worship.”
The church is also full of people during the day – about 40 young children and their parents attend Mainly Music, which runs two days a week, and a play group runs on the other three days. Mark says 80 percent of these people aren’t otherwise connected with the church. Frustratingly, the church’s toy library can’t fit on its own premises.
Under a best-case scenario, in five years time the development work will have started, Mark and Neville say.
There are lots of ideas for what the site might contain: a worship centre to seat 400 people, a preschool for 150 children, a secondary school, a medical centre and a library have all been discussed.
Mark says he envisions a “park-like” facility where people can relax and which might include a retreat centre for people burned out through church work. “It’s not purely about us doing something for ourselves.”
Even once the 64 subscribers’ sections have been allocated, there will still be another 50 sections to sell to fund development work. The sale of these sections should return about $20 million.
Neville says the church is taking every possible practical step to get the development happening. While they have been lobbying the council, they have focused on trying to work with them,
not against them.
The parish council recently decided to appoint a full-time operations manager to take some pressure off Mark, who’s been in the parish for 30 years.
Mark says it’s difficult to focus on nurturing the congregation as well as work on the vision for development. “You feel like you’re doing the splits.”
The church is also celebrating its 150th jubilee in December this year. It’s the oldest continuous establishment in Clevedon, Mark says, and has always had a strong focus on the community.