POINT Cook residents want Wyndham Council to stop issuing building permits until the area's sports ground shortage is addressed.
The rapidly growing suburb has just one sports ground, in Dunnings Road, to cater for more than 25,000 people.
Sports groups fear they will be unable to take on new members as they don't have the space to cater for them.
The newly formed Point Cook Sports Group put a submission to the council last week asking it to consider "more creative solutions" in the face of drought, spokesman Craig Pope said.
Group members include the Point Cook football, cricket, Auskick and basketball clubs, as well as the suburb's residents association.
Wyndham Mayor Kim McAliney said the council was struggling not only with drought, with restrictions on watering new grounds, but also with buying more land.
Mr Pope said he believed the mayor was "really trying to solve this issue".
However, he said a speedy solution was needed and he was prepared to work with the council to discuss ideas.
"The council is between a rock and a hard place but the drought cannot be used as an excuse.
"We need more creative solutions.
"We are a lobby group, but we would be happy to help get things over the line for the council if it will assist."
The sports group believes one option is to build water tanks under any future sporting grounds to harvest and store storm water.
Cr McAliney said the group's calls to stop growth would not work as any such action would be overruled by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
She said sports grounds were not the only infrastructure issues facing the area and that State Government funding was also needed.
"You can't stop growth in a growth corridor," Cr McAliney said.
"We need to have from the State Government some kind of funding regime for growth councils and we don't have it.
"Every time we apply for funding through the State Government, we have to apply for a grant."
"We can't continue to grow at [between] 7000 and 8000 people a year and have inadequate infrastructure.
"People just aren't prepared to wait."
Cr McAliney said negotiations were taking place with the State Government on a "whole range of issues" associated with the growth corridor, including access to public transport.
She will meet sporting clubs this week to discuss concerns, but said the suggestion of synthetic turf was not a solution.
"There is a huge, huge outlay for a single ground and that's why we are looking at a whole lot of options at the moment.
"We've applied for government concessions, because at the moment we can only water one in four existing grounds and the Government does not allow for growth corridors at the moment."
Cr McAliney said some groups did not understand the council's difficult position.
"That's why I am willing to go out and talk to people about this," she said.
"I'm a mother with two young kids who love sport and I'm having the same problem.
"Normally, I can sort problems out, but we need water."
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