The bushfire plan that sank a 20-person Hindu temple in Whittlesea’s green wedge

A Hindu place of worship for 20 people at a time at 330 Grants Road, Woodstock, was refused a permit by the City of Whittlesea. On review, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, as reported by the North Central Review on 28 July 2026, rejected the argument that the land was unsuitable for a place of worship, could not find unacceptable traffic impacts and found the noise manageable. It then refused the permit anyway, because the proposal’s Bushfire Emergency Plan named a cricket ground that does not exist near the site as the primary evacuation point and an incident team of at least four staff when only two staff would be on the land.

For the temple committees and gurdwara trusts now looking at rural blocks in Whittlesea, Mitchell and Hume, that sequence is the lesson. The zone argument that dominated a year of local debate did not decide the case. A document about what happens on a bad fire day did.

What was applied for

Star Weekly reported the proposal on 23 May 2025 as “a yoga and meditation studio and Hindu temple” with “weekend operations from 8am to 7pm, accommodating up to 20 people”, and quoted the petition’s author, Whittlesea local Kerry Stewart, estimating “50-60 cars each day” on the roads serving the site.

What the tribunal accepted

The tribunal’s written decision was not available at publication. What follows on the tribunal’s reasoning rests on the North Central Review’s report of 28 July 2026. The Review also refers to agricultural risk as a reason for the outcome, but the passages it quotes concern bushfire.

According to that report, the tribunal was direct about the zone. “A place of worship is a land use for which a permit can be granted in the GWZ,” it wrote. And then: “In our view, a place of worship could be appropriate in urban, regional or rural land locations, subject to the policies and provisions of the applicable planning scheme, and the relevant facts and circumstances.”

That is the finding the zone argument ran into. On traffic and noise, the Review reports that the tribunal could not conclude the proposal would cause unacceptable traffic impacts, and found that noise from the land could be managed. The tribunal still refused the permit.

What sank the application

The same report records the tribunal turning to the Bushfire Emergency Plan and listing what was wrong with it. “It refers to a cricket/football ground as the primary emergency evacuation area, when no cricket or football ground is proximate to the subject land,” the tribunal wrote. According to the Review, the plan also marked an assembly area described as a car park where no car park was proposed, and relied on at least four staff forming the incident management team when the application provided for only two staff on site. It assumed worshippers would be local residents able to evacuate to their own homes, whereas the tribunal understood the place of worship would draw from a regional catchment.

Read together, those points describe a template written for a sports ground and left largely unedited. The tribunal said the errors made the plan’s “reliability and relevance questionable”, and noted that “a number of respondents in their written and oral submissions spoke to the bushfire risk posed to this locality, including their experiences as part of the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009”.

The legal hook was Clause 71.02-3 of the planning scheme. “In bushfire affected areas, planning and responsible authorities must prioritise the protection of human life over all other policy considerations,” the tribunal quoted, adding: “We need to be satisfied that the proposal prioritises the protection of human life … before a permit can be granted.” Its conclusion, as reported, was that “we are not persuaded that the proposal will result in a net community benefit”, and: “Council’s decision is affirmed. No permit is granted.”

What stands out is that the tribunal, having disposed of the zone, traffic and noise arguments, refused on a document produced in support of the application.

What a compliant application looks like

The Woodstock file gives a practical checklist by negation. The emergency plan has to be written for the actual site, with assembly and evacuation points that exist and can be reached from that driveway. The number of staff in the plan must match the number in the application; a two-person operation cannot promise an incident team of at least four. The people the plan protects must be the people the application describes, so a temple that will draw families from across the region cannot assume its worshippers will drive home to a nearby farmhouse. The plan should say who decides not to open on a day of elevated fire danger, how that decision reaches worshippers travelling from across the city, and what happens to anyone already on site.

Applicants should also expect the fire question from the tribunal. At Woodstock, with objectors giving evidence about 2009, it became the decisive issue at VCAT. The applicant company has not commented publicly on the tribunal’s findings.

For a committee looking at a paddock on the edge of Whittlesea, Wallan or Mickleham, the order of work is set by this case. Check the planning scheme maps for the zone, the Bushfire Management Overlay and the bushfire prone area before signing anything. Ask the CFA and the council’s fire prevention officer for a meeting before lodging. Commission a bushfire emergency plan from someone who has stood on the block, and have every consultant read the others’ documents so that the staff numbers, the catchment and the car park match. The zone can be argued, and at Woodstock it was won. The fire plan is checked line by line, and one wrong sports ground is enough.