REGIONAL REPORT : Neighborhoods Roll Up Welcome Mat for Churches : Religion: From Los Angeles to San Diego, some communities object to noise, traffic and designs of new structures.

When officials at St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine were drawing up 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 to spend $24,000 on giant trees to block it out.

The matter has mobilized residents on a quiet cul-de-sac called Bloomdale Street, and opposition has spread beyond it. Calling themselves the Bloomdale Ad Hoc Committee, they complain that the church’s 60-foot-high dome obscures their view of the mountains. The committee also says that the “stark white” coloring of the finish makes the building stick out like a sore thumb amid the brown and beige homes.

“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, one Bloomdale resident. “My youngest son, who is 5, said: ‘Why are they building a mall on our street?’ ”

The set-to over St. Paul’s is symptomatic of what has been happening across Southern California. From San Diego to Los Angeles, churches are finding that more and more communities are yanking up the welcome mat.

There was a time when a towering church steeple visible from miles away represented a comforting moral presence, a symbol of order. A church was a hub of activity that drew people together for worship and socials.

But times have changed.

In many cases, neighborhood churches no longer serve the community but draw congregants from all across the city, or even the county. Today, members of the clergy lament, many people have come to regard churches as nuisances.

“Unfortunately, we live in a very secular society and the churches are not wanted,” said the Rev. George Stephanides of St. Paul’s. “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 is an annoyance.

Several cities and counties have passed laws banning church construction in certain areas, largely because religious institutions do not generate tax revenues.

“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 real estate agent whose business consists of church listings.

“The only time you get them to waver . . . 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,” Stein said.

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 residents’ property values will be affected.

Church officials describe their dilemma as a Catch-22.

“In the planned communities, (developers) like the Irvine Company will dedicate three-acre church sites, but most churches cannot afford the $1-million to $1.5-million investment,” said Thomas Goble, superintendent of the Anaheim district of the Church of the Nazarene, which includes Orange and San Bernardino counties.

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 plans to build 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 had to settle for a 2.5-acre site near a freeway in nearby Granada Hills. They agreed to changes suggested by that neighborhood, such as building a Spanish-tile roof and limiting attendance at services to about 300 people for the first year, El-Gabalawy said.

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

In San Diego, stiff opposition from a homeowners’ committee, which said that 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 to a revised plan and build a six-foot fence around the property.

As a result of this experience, officials in the San Diego district presbytery have formed a new committee whose sole mission is to acquire land for church construction in developing areas.

“We plan to be the first building in the area so we can determine what the neighborhood will look like,” said Jack H. Barrell, chairman of the committee.

Two months ago, Fullerton refused a request by the New Harvest Christian Fellowship Church to lease space in a building downtown. The city has a ban prohibiting churches within a 12-block area known as the central business district. Also banned are pornography stores, junk dealers, pawnshops and palm readers.

“I hate to lump churches in with that group, but it’s for a different reason altogether,” said Bob Linnell, a program planner for Fullerton. “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--to bring in business.”

To Goble, the Nazarene superintendent, “it seems to be that the planning departments of the communities want the churches to be in our one zone. But when we try to buy property in our one zone area, the residents don’t want the churches there because of the noise and the traffic.”

However, the Rev. Paul Sailhamer, senior associate pastor at First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, said: “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.”

Mel Malkoff, a land-planning consultant in Newport Beach, recently represented a megachurch in south Orange County that wanted to build a 6,800-seat sanctuary in Trabuco Canyon.

The Saddleback Valley Community Church’s proposal ran into opposition from environmentalists who said the church complex would destroy the canyon’s bucolic character. Eventually, the church agreed to a land swap with a development company that moved the proposed $55-million complex out of the 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.”

For Stephanides, however, the debate remains puzzling.

“I keep thinking that in Russia, where people (have lived) 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.”

Times staff writer John Dart contributed to this story.