By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A band of residents are urging the preservation of one of Keysborough’s few surviving 19th-century buildings.
The 143-year-old Methodist Church at 176 Chapel Road has an uncertain future. While it stands in disrepair behind a cordoned fence, its owner the Uniting Church says it is undecided on its fate.
Elizabeth Grasso helped organize a 300-follower Facebook group as well as an online petition to save the relic of pastoral settlement.
Having lived in the area for 56 areas, she said it was important to retain the landmark – especially with the encroachment of housing estates.
“We’re happy to go to Europe to see history but in Victoria sometimes people feel powerless to act.
“I thought if people don’t get involved, the likelihood is it would get demolished.”
Gaye Guest has been feeding the Facebook page with photos and stories of the church, such as wedding scenes in front of the striking Gothic structure.
She said there was need to protect the church’s heritage-listed honour rolls and stained-glass windows as well as recover its lost foundation stone.
She hoped the building could be reinvigorated as a place of worship or a community hub.
“We’re crying out for more meeting places.”
Although listed as significant in Greater Dandenong’s heritage study, the council says it is effectively powerless to compel the Uniting Church to preserve the building.
Heritage overlay protections were only triggered when development or demolition was proposed, Greater Dandenong city planning director Jody Bosman recently said.
“Unfortunately (the council) can’t direct owners to protect structures from decay.”
A Uniting Church spokesperson recently told Star Journal that the building was “unsafe” and “neither used or needed” by its congregation.
“(The) building itself has no formal heritage standing.
“In its current state it has been deemed unsafe and would require a significant amount of money spent on it to change that status.
“The local congregation and the Presbytery of Port Philip East continue to look at options for the future of the site.”
The church declined to comment for this story.
The group’s Facebook page is ‘Saving the Historic Keysborough Uniting Church Building’.
Its petition can be found at change.org/p/the-uniting-chruch-the-uniting-church-property-trust-saving-the-historic-keysborough-uniting-church
