Neighbors Win Round Against Temple Expansion

In the latest twist in a long-running controversy pitting homeowners against members of the nation’s largest Thai Buddhist temple, the city Planning Department has rejected plans for construction of a $1-million cultural center at the Wat-Thai Temple in Sun Valley.

Reacting to complaints voiced by neighbors of the temple and reservations expressed by City Councilman Howard Finn, Associate City Zoning Administrator James Crisp refused to modify the temple’s conditional-use permit to allow the expansion.

Noise, Litter, Traffic Cited

Crisp said the 12-year-old temple complex at Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Cantara Street is already a source of unreasonable noise, litter and traffic, and that permitting the cultural center would make the problems in the nearby residential area even worse.

Unless temple officials can overturn Crisp’s ruling by appealing to another level of the city’s planning bureaucracy, they will have to abandon plans to further expand the complex, which serves as a spiritual hub for much of Southern California’s Thai-American community.

The ruling was a source of embarrassment to the temple, which in October laid the proposed center’s foundation stone in an elaborate ceremony overseen by the supreme commander of the Royal Armed Forces of Thailand.

The ruling also is expected to heighten a complicated dispute over activities at the 2.2-acre center, originally designed as a meditation center for Thai Buddhist monks.

In recent years, attendance at temple events has grown because of the rapid growth of Southern California’s Thai-American population. On weekends and holidays, crowds occasionally have ranged into the thousands. At the temple’s dedication in October, 1979, tens of thousands were drawn to an appearance by the Supreme Patriarch of Thai Buddhism, described by temple officials as the Thai equivalent of the Pope.

The temple parking lot has only 96 spaces. Temple neighbors have long been annoyed by the crowds, describing them as a threat to an otherwise quiet life style. At a series of hearings before city zoning officials, the neighbors have argued that the increasingly large crowds violate conditional-use permits that allow the temple to operate.

Attempts to Ease Friction

Temple officials have attempted to ease local friction by canceling weekend bazaars, organizing litter patrols and setting up a shuttle service to off-site parking lots.

While making those overtures, however, the temple was planning to grow. At the time of last fall’s foundation stone ceremony, temple officials conceded that they had not asked the city for permission to build the center, a two-story building to be constructed with the help of local and foreign donations.

The request was formally aired last month at a zoning hearing in Van Nuys before zoning administrator Crisp.

At the hearing, opponents of the expansion argued that traffic, noise and litter problems were still severe in the neighborhood. They also said that a local shuttle service was infrequently used; that a “temple hot line” for complaints was frequently answered by non-English-speaking officials, and that the temple had violated its zoning laws by cutting a hole in a masonry wall separating the complex from its neighbors to the west.

Crisp’s report said expansion of the temple complex “could only result in an intensification” of traffic, litter and noise problems in surrounding communities.

David Wygand, a 25-year resident of Sun Valley and the leader of a homeowners’ group opposing the expansion, described the ruling as “exactly what we were looking for. . . . “

Although Wygand said he considered the existing temple “a local landmark,” he said he is firmly opposed to further expansion.