Hosanna house could be left without a home

Seamus Enright

Following complaints of noisy, late night prayer gatherings, a local church faces an anxious battle with the Planning Section of Cavan County Council over permission to use an industrial unit to host meetings. If they lose their appeal it could see the congregation left without a place of worship.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Hosanna House, at the Crystal Retail Park, Pollamore, Cavan, were last week refused permission to retain a converted industrial unit as a meeting house, offices and toilets. Permission was also refused for the retention of signage at the roadside boundary of the Crystal Retail Park, despite the fact permission for both was previously granted for five-years in March 2009. That has since expired.
The matter was subsequently taken up by the Council’s planning section, who in May served an enforcement notice against unit owner Freddie Nixon and then occupier, Pastor John Eniola in respect of an ‘Unauthorised Development’ at the site, which is zoned in the County Development Plan for ‘Retail’.
The enforcement also followed representations made at a political level by former Town and County Councillor Andrew Boylan from Butlersbridge, who cited the potential breach of planning laws arising from the church holding their meetings at the location.

‘Not acceptable’
Acting on a complaint from one local resident, Mr Boylan told the last ever meeting of Cavan Town Council: “It is not acceptable and it is not good enough – I’m fully in favour of religious expression, but you must have regard for the people living adjacent to where this behaviour is taking place”.
The former TD also added: “I would suggest to these people, if they want to wail and intone and invoke the Good Lord, that they go out to Killykeen Forest Park and they can wail and intone until the cows come home.”
However, National Officer and new Area 15 Pastor, Ayodele Timothy Sanusi is hopeful such drastic measures can be avoided. By opening dialogue, the pastor hopes that a satisfactory agreement involving all parties can be reached, which would still allow the church to remain at the Crystal Park unit.
The church, which have been part of the Cavan community for more than a decade are now in the process of preparing to appeal Cavan County Council’s decision to refuse permission, and have up until the second week of September to lodge papers.
Pastor Ayodele, who spent the last seven years Ministering in Monaghan, and has previously lived in Cavan, is deeply troubled by the problems facing the church, and the possibility of his congregation being left without a house of worship in a county he and his family consider “home”.
He told The Anglo-Celt: “Two of my three children were born in Cavan, so taking up the Ministry here I was looking forward to coming home. We can’t tell our children ‘No, they don’t want us here’, or ‘we’re not welcome’. It’s really painful. It makes me wonder if this is the same Cavan I left before, or somewhere completely different”, he says.
“I was really shocked, that the first thing welcoming me back to Cavan was this”, Pastor Ayodele says, holding aloft the Council letter informing the church that their application to retain the unit for church meetings was ‘Refused’. “I was so surprised. I said ‘wait a minute, does this mean we did not have planning permission for this before?’. But we did, and if we had, then what is the problem in getting that again?
“I spoke with the owner (Freddy Nixon) who told us the problem is the area is mapped a specific way. But then why did we get planning permission in the first place if they knew it was not going to be suitable? The Council have a big question to answer in that.”

Muffled
To accommodate local residents, Pastor Ayodele says the drums are now muffled, the sound-system is turned down, a 24-hour prayer service no longer takes place, while other prayer meetings, including their Easter schedule have been curtailed in length or times changed. Furthermore, as part of the church’s planning application they agreed that during their quarterly ‘Night Prayer’ meeting, drumming would be halted at midnight.
Singing time during regular prayer meetings meanwhile accounts for no more 30 minutes of their usual two-hour long services.
On top of everything else, the church say they have invested heavily in converting the unit for suitable use, all lost if they are forced to leave.
Qualified structural engineeer, and church member John Ogunbayo says as much as €100,000 was spent on converting the unit for use as a meeting house.
“We have done a lot of things. We have also spent a lot of money and we don’t want that to have been for nothing! Before we came it was empty. We have spent this money because we want to be part of the community,” he says.
At the present time the church have no other options, but to appeal the Council’s decision. Pastor Ayodele remains hopeful a peaceful resolution can be arrived at.
“With dialogue and working with people I feel we can come to an agreement without the need for litigation. We have no other option available to us at the moment. If we don’t have this unit, where are we going to go to? I don’t know! Maybe we can rent a room in the hotel for a short time, but really, it won’t be enough,” Pastor Ayodele says.
“The congregation feels really bad, they don’t know what to think. They’re really disappointed, and very worried. They ask me ‘how can this be? Where are we going to go to Pastor? Are they going to kick us out onto the street?’ But I tell them no. This is not the Cavan I know, and I will talk to as many people as I can to work this out. I believe that this can be solved.”