By KATH GANNAWAY
Uncertain future for Cerini Community Centre…
THE future of the Warburton Cerini Community Centre is in limbo after the committee managing it handed it back to the Victorian Education Department at the end of June.
Ownership of the building is complicated with the department, the Roman Catholic Trusts Corporation and Yarra Ranges Council all having an interest in the land on which the centre sits, or abutts it.
The circular building was built by Father Charles Cerini in 1952 to provide a Catholic school for Upper Yarra students.
It closed in 1992 when the new St Joseph’s School was built in Yarra Junction in 1992.
It has been used as a community centre, and for eight years, until recently, by Upper Yarra Community House for its VCAL and Step Ahead program students.
Committee of Management spokesperson Peter Summers said while the ageing committee was disappointed at having to close the centre after 23 years, circumstances left them with little option.
He said a group of Warburton parishioners who wanted to keep the building as a memorial to Fr Cerini were able to keep the building after paying a deposit to the Education Department.
“The closure has come about as a result of problems with obtaining titles to the land and failure to gain government permission to correct the sewerage system,” Mr Summers wrote in a letter to the Mail announcing the closure.
The centre is in Park Road, Warburton, and abuts the Warburton Primary School.
The Mail’s efforts to establish who owns what land, were also ‘complicated’.
An Education Department spokesman said the Cerini land remained part of the Warburton Primary School and that significant works would be required to bring it up to a reasonable standard.
He said no decision had been made on the future of the building, but that if it were no longer required for educational purposes, it had to be sold.
“The cost of transferring the land on which the building sits would be substantial, as it would need to cover legal costs, subdivision costs and acquiring the council roadway,” he said.
A Yarra Ranges Council spokesperson said the council owned less than 25 per cent of the land, and that the closure was an issue for the Education Department and the Catholic Church, as its land was “not going to impact on the building.”
The spokesperson did not say whether they had any interest in the future of the centre, or whether it had any local historical significance.
A spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese confirmed that the Parish of Upper Yarra Valley owns vacant land within the vicinity of the Cerini Centre, but not abutting it.
An unsealed road that is registered as a public road, is owned by the local parish.
Yarra Ranges Council representative for Warburton area Cr Jim Child said while the building had strong sentimental value within the district because of Fr Cerini, it was the Warburton Cerini Community Group’s decision to make.
In response to the possibility of a new committee being established to resurrect the vision of community ownership, Cr Child said that lay with the Warburton community.
“The value of the place is there, and it is appreciated, but in the end you have to get people on board to do that task,” he said.
Is that a possibility? Let the Mail know your thoughts on the future of the Cerini Centre through the Mail Facebook page, email to editor@mailnewsgroup.com.au, or write to Mail News Group, 244 Maroondah Highway, Healesville.
Fr Cerini’s vision created a building that was ahead of its time, circular with classrooms and ancillary rooms built around a central hall.
It was unique also in that it was built with the help of community members of all faiths who finally saw the popular priest’s vision become reality in 1958 when the school officially opened.
Fr Cerini hit the headlines of Melbourne papers in 1966 when he campaigned for the right of Yarra Junction students to use the government school bus.
For two years, Fr Cerini, the parish priest, drove the school bus to Yarra Junction every day to collect students that lived too far away from the school to walk.
When the priest could no longer drive the bus to collect Yarra Junction students, and with the government refusing to allow them to use the local service, he walked the school’s 35 children to and from Warburton in protest.
After 13 days, students were able to travel to school on the bus.
