PROPOSED changes to the Rosewood St Brigid’s church, hall, presbytery and garage location or removal are now open for public comment through the Ipswich City Council planning platform.
Submissions about the proposals will close on May 24.
The Corporation of the Trustees of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane, on behalf of the Ipswich Catholic Community, are seeking a development permit from Council to relocate the church building a distance of approximately 20 metres east from its current location and to relocate the current church hall to the current church site. The existing presbytery and garage are proposed to be demolished.
The changes are based on a bid to address structural issues with the church building.
The main problems have been caused by the reactive soils at the church site which have resulted in settlement and movement of the stumps over time. As a result of this movement, the external walls and the internal timber columns now lean towards the eastern side of the building.
The major concern is the horizontal displacement of the internal columns which has caused the supporting bearers to twist.
Restumping of the entire building was taken into consideration, though advice from engineers and builders engaged on the project suggested that a clean site is preferred for the restumping of the church building, to allow new stumps to reach a sufficient depth to fix the issues of the reactive soils at the site.
The relocation of the church and hall buildings has been estimated to cost more than $2 million and it is likely the church will need repairs once it has been relocated.
