Holy Wars for Turf : Neighbors, Churches Clashing Over Congestion, Aesthetics

When officials at St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church were drawing plans for a new sanctuary, they settled on a $3-million, copper-domed edifice that would reflect the magnitude of their religious faith.

But now that construction is nearly complete, the church’s neighbors are calling the temple of God an eyesore. And they are pressuring the city of Irvine to spend $24,000 on giant trees to block it out.

“We went away for vacation in August and all of a sudden when we came back, this big thing was sitting there at the end of our street,” said Dan Rasmussen.

The thorny issue has mobilized those who live on a quiet cul-de-sac called Bloomdale, across Alton Parkway from the church, and opposition has spread to other area residents. Calling themselves the Bloomdale Ad Hoc Committee, they complain that the church’s 60-foot-high dome obscures their view of the mountains. Not to mention that its “stark white” finish makes the massive building even more intrusive amid the brown and beige homes.

The brouhaha over St. Paul’s is symptomatic of a trend throughout Southern California. From San Diego to Los Angeles, churches are discovering that an increasing number of communities are yanking up the welcome mat.

There was a time when the towering church steeple visible from miles away represented a comforting moral presence, a symbol of order amid chaos. Like the local schoolhouse, it was a hub of activity that drew people together.

But times have changed.

In many cases, neighborhood churches no longer serve the immediate community but draw congregants from all across the city, or even the county. Today, clergy members lament, many people in urban areas and suburbs have come to regard churches as a nuisance.

“Unfortunately we live in a very secular society and the churches are not wanted,” said the Rev. George Stephanides of St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church. “It’s all right for people to go into areas and put up drinking (establishments), but the church, which makes up the good moral fiber of society, is being attacked.”

Some grumble that religious sanctuaries cause traffic jams and parking problems. Others say that loud gospel music reverberating through the neighborhood on an otherwise peaceful morning is an annoyance. To make matters more difficult for churches, several cities and counties have passed ordinances banning new church construction in certain areas, largely because religious institutions do not generate tax revenue.

“I work in five counties in Southern California and I do not know of one municipality that one could consider to be friendly to religious organizations,” said John F. Stein, a Huntington Beach-based realtor whose business consists entirely of church listings. “The only time you get them to waver anywhere off the rigid path they’ve set is if the church already exists on the site, it has already been taken off the tax rolls, and forever will be, so they have nothing to lose.”

Two months ago, the city of Fullerton refused a request by New Harvest Christian Fellowship Church to lease space in a building downtown. The city bans churches from locating anywhere within a 12-block area known as the central business district. Other businesses forbidden from setting up shop there include pornography stores, junk dealers, pawn shops and palm readers.

The irony is not lost on Bob Linnell, a program planner for the city of Fullerton.

“I hate to lump churches in with that group but it’s for a different reason altogether,” Linnell said. “We’re not against churches but they don’t bring in a lot of business to the area and that’s the whole purpose of the downtown area, is to bring in business.”

However, the Rev. Paul Sailhamer sees the situation differently. “This is our peer group,” said Sailhamer, senior associate pastor at First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. “I’d be the first to say there are some churches that have not been good neighbors but I think that is far overshadowed by the role churches play in the community.”

Churches tend to encounter the most resistance in rapidly growing areas such as Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties. This is especially true in planned communities where powerful homeowners’ associations are extremely vigilant over what is built and how it will affect residents’ property values.

Church officials describe their dilemma as a Catch-22.

“In the planned communities, (developers) like the Irvine Co. will dedicate 3-acre church sites, but most churches cannot afford the $1-million to $1.5-million investment,” said Thomas Goble, superintendent of the Anaheim district church of the Nazarene, which includes Orange and San Bernardino counties. “You can’t put a church large enough on 3 acres to support that kind of acquisition.”

And, Goble said, there are other concerns.

“It seems to be that the planning departments of the communities want the churches to be in one zone,” Goble said. “But when we try to buy property in (that) one zone, the residents don’t want the churches there because of the noise and the traffic.”

In San Diego, stiff opposition from a homeowners’ committee, which said a proposed Presbyterian church would bring too much noise and traffic, temporarily derailed plans to build a church complex on 4.2 acres in an unincorporated area known as Rancho San Diego. After a yearlong delay, the issue was settled last summer when church officials agreed to adhere strictly to a revised plan and erect a 6-foot fence around the property, among other things.

As a result of this experience, officials in the San Diego district presbytery are taking the offensive: They have formed a new committee whose sole mission is to acquire land for church construction in developing areas before houses are built nearby.

“We plan to be the first building in the area so we can determine what the neighborhood will look like,” said Jack H. Barrell, chair of the new church development committee for the Presbytery of San Diego. “We’re currently in negotiation in several areas in the county,” he said.

Even in long-established suburban areas in Los Angeles County, church officials have run into problems.

The Islamic Center of Northridge, which has obtained city approval to build a mosque after a three-year battle, had to scuttle its original plans to build on a site near the Cal State Northridge campus. “We showed a neighborhood meeting a drawing of a minaret and dome, and they came unglued,” said Ahmed El-Gabalawy, director of the Islamic Center. “They voted heavily against it.”

Instead, the Muslim leaders were forced to settle for a 2.5-acre site bordering a freeway in nearby Granada Hills. They agreed to changes suggested by that neighborhood, such as a building a Spanish-tile roof and limiting attendance at services to about 300 people for the first year, El-Gabalawy said. Pending city approval of the plans, the Islamic Center hopes to begin construction by the end of 1992.

However, while a few church projects in the Los Angeles area have encountered scattered opposition, the situation appears to be much more common in outlying areas.

“It doesn’t tend to be as prevalent in Los Angeles because there’s not that many sites to develop any longer,” said Stein, the realtor. “It tends to be mostly Riverside, Orange, San Diego and San Bernardino counties.”

Mel Malkoff, a land planning consultant in Newport Beach, recently represented a mega-church in South County in its efforts to build a 6,800-seat sanctuary in Trabuco Canyon.

The Saddleback Valley Community Church proposal, which also included 84 Sunday school rooms, lighted softball fields and a fellowship hall, ran into opposition from environmentalists who said the church complex would destroy the bucolic character of the rugged hillside.

Eventually, the church agreed to a land swap with a development company that moved the proposed $55-million complex out of the rural foothills.

“We spent 2 1/2 years and a lot of money and we got nowhere,” Malkoff said of the initial plan. “But we were among the fortunate few. Most churches wouldn’t have been able to do what we did because they don’t have the financial staying power to hire consultants and engineers to keep the process going.”

For St. Paul’s Stephanides, however, the debate remains puzzling.

“I keep thinking that in Russia where people live under the cruelest form of tyranny they have given their lives to go to church,” Stephanides said. “But here, where freedom of religion is part of the Bill of Rights, we have to go through all this hassle. It doesn’t make sense.”

Times staff writer John Dart contributed to this story.