Pine Rivers Uniting Church will stay at its longtime Kallangur home, with plans for a new special school redrawn to allow both to share the Narangba Road site.
The property had been endorsed for the school project in September 2024, with the earlier plan requiring the church to make way for the development.
That changed in July, when Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek announced the plans would be amended to allow the church to remain while the special school went ahead.
The church and the planned Moreton Bay South special school will now coexist at 30 Narangba Road, ending uncertainty over whether the congregation would have to leave the site.
Exactly how the two will fit together is still being worked out. The school remains in the planning phase, with detailed design yet to be completed and issues including traffic, vegetation, acoustics and stormwater still to be considered.
Details such as access, parking, fencing and the final boundaries between the church and school have not yet been made public.
Earlier Plan Put Church’s Future in Doubt
The earlier proposal went considerably further than simply identifying land near the church. The State Government has confirmed that the September 2024 site decision would have resulted in Pine Rivers Uniting Church being demolished to make way for the school.
By 2026, the Department of Education had advised the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland Synod of its intention to compulsorily acquire the property. The Synod objected, arguing that the school and the church’s existing ministries could operate on the same site.
Opposition also emerged locally. Division 7 Councillor Yvonne Barlow presented a 61-signature petition to City of Moreton Bay, while former Pine Rivers Uniting Church minister Barry Allen was among those who publicly called for an alternative to demolition.
The Government has since said it worked with the Uniting Church and considered community concerns before amending the proposal. While those representations formed part of the discussion surrounding the site, there is no evidence that any single petition, person or campaign was responsible for the change.
A Local Church Story Stretching Back Generations
The congregation’s history in Pine Rivers is considerably older than the building standing on Narangba Road today.
The church traces its local beginnings to a Sunday school established at North Pine in 1871. A Wesleyan church followed on Dayboro Road in 1877, while Kallangur later became part of the story through the Marsden Home for Boys.
Church records say Frederick Marsden founded the home and a church was built beside it in 1930, serving first the Congregational Church and later the Uniting Church.
A push to bring several Pine Rivers congregations together gathered pace in the late 1980s. Strathpine and Lawnton formally united in 1990, followed by South Pine and Kallangur in 1991, bringing Presbyterian, Congregational and Methodist traditions into the one congregation.
The present worship centre at 30 Narangba Road opened on 21 April 1996.
It remains in active use. Pine Rivers Uniting Church holds Sunday services there and runs children’s and community programs from the Kallangur site.
The distinction matters when describing the site’s history: while the congregation and its predecessors have a long association with Pine Rivers and Kallangur, no formal State or local heritage listing for the present 1996 worship centre has been identified.
Special School Still Planned for 2029
Changing the plan for the church has not changed the Government’s intention to build the new school.
The Department of Education continues to list the project as the new special school for Moreton Bay South, with an opening planned for 2029. It says the school is intended to increase special schooling capacity and provide enrolment relief across the local school network.
Departmental material also identifies Pine Rivers Special School at Lawnton as the existing school associated with the Moreton Bay South project.
There is still some way to go before construction. As of September 2026, the project remains in the planning phase, a design contract is yet to be awarded and a construction contractor has not been appointed.
The Department has not published a final project budget, listing the cost as subject to detailed design and contract award. Nor has it published a confirmed enrolment capacity for the Kallangur school.
Those details should become clearer as the project moves into design.
For Pine Rivers Uniting Church, however, the central question has been resolved. The special school is still coming to Kallangur, but the congregation will remain at the Narangba Road site as the plans take shape around it.
Published 8-September-2026
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