By Kath Gannaway
An iconic Warburton building is descending into ruin at the hands vandals, and on account of a lack of maintenance and the inability of government bodies to resolve its future.
The Cerini Centre was handed back to the Education Department in 2015 when the community-driven committee of management was no longer able to maintain it, and bids to have the building transferred to community ownership stalled.
Warburton resident Ivor Wolstencroft believes the centre has the potential to be a great community resource, but said with three interested parties involved in its ownership, it was complicated.
“I belong to the Warburton Makers Group – a group that would love to use such a site,” Mr Wolstencroft told the Mail last week.
He said there were other community groups who might be interested in using the building as well as the potential for the site to be used as professional rooms.
The centre is in Park Road, adjacent to Warburton Primary School, and Mr Wolstencroft said the road way into the centre was used by school children to access the school and by dog walkers and local residents at other times.
He said the building was now unsecured with recent vandalism highlighting the urgent need for action.
The lack of power to the building, the absence of a security alarm and the lack of regular maintenance all contribute to the deterioration of the building.
“It is sad to see such a building with strong local links decline,” Mr Wolstencroft said.
The only real outcome of the 2015 call for action was unanimous agreement that the issue was indeed ‘complicated’.
The Education Department, the Roman Catholic Trusts Corporation and Yarra Ranges Council all have an interest in the land on which the centre sits, or abutting it.
The circular building has a unique history. It 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 and was home to VCAL and Step Ahead programs run by Upper Yarra Community House for eight years leading up to its 2015 closure.
While the Mail has not received a response from the Education Department in relation to inquiries made last week as to the current situation, a spokesperson told the Mail in 2015 that significant works would be required to bring the building up to a reasonable standard.
He said that the cost of transferring the land on which the building stood would be substantial and that if it were no longer required for educational purposes, it must be sold.
Yarra Ranges Council said at the time that it owned only less than 25 per cent of the land but was unable to comment on its future or local historical significance.
The Catholic Archdiocese’s role revolves around an unsealed road that is registered as a public road and is owned by the local parish.
Manager for Property Services, Dermot Cannon, said last week that the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne remained committed to assisting in determining a resolution that provided a net community benefit.
“The building is only partly built on land owned by the Church, of which is a private road and hence our interest in that respect is more around regularising this matter,” Mr Cannon said.
“We have attempted in the past to rectify this situation with council, and also the Department of Education’s consideration to the excision of land surrounding the centre, and would be willing to participate in any future dialogue in this regard,” he said.
