A Civics Lesson: Buddhists Told to Surrender Retreat

Well, at least Tin Htoon can laugh about it, this little civics lesson he got free of charge last week from the Yorba Linda City Council. Don’t think for a second he doesn’t know what happened and why, but at week’s end he was being either too gentlemanly or too savvy to say so. Live to fight another day, and all that.

Htoon has been carrying the ball since 1995 for four doctors who wanted to build a Buddhist monastery on a 5-acre site they own on a snug little hillside off Fairmont Boulevard in the northern part of town. It’s about as rustic a site as you could find and still be in town and, besides, the monastery would share a property line with a proposed Mormon Church, whose elders welcomed their Buddhist neighbors. Yes, one could picture monks there.

The project met the zoning requirements and was approved both by Yorba Linda city staffers and the Planning Commission. To get to that point, the builders made significant modifications, such as eliminating a towering pagoda and other ornate architectural features.

Last Tuesday, culminating some long-standing neighborhood opposition to the monastery and meditation hall, the City Council shot down the monks on a 5-0 vote. Residents spoke, and the council buckled. It is not unprecedented for the council to go against both staff and the Planning Commission, but as one city official said, “It rarely happens.”

The council cited the prospect of lots of Buddhists converging on the site at various times during the year, resulting in traffic and noise problems. This seems the proper time to inject that this is the city that touts the Richard Nixon Library as a must-stop tourist site.

Be that as it may, I don’t think anyone would argue that the current dispute is, on some level, a culture clash. On the other hand, who can dispute people when they say the city is already traffic-clogged and that any further intrusions, be they from praying Buddhists or braying tourists, is too much?

I talked to a couple brothers who live in a house up the hill from the now dead-in-the-water monastery. They were exceptionally good-natured about their opposition to it, which was adamant.

It’s got nothing to do with Buddhists, brothers David and Brian Wadsworth said, although they are still under the mistaken impression a 60-foot pagoda was still part of the package. “Up here you have people with two- to three-million-dollar homes and they [the Buddhists] wanted to build right down there,” David said, pointing toward the hillside. “People pay a lot of money for lots up here so they can have the view,” implying that the monastery would interfere with that. “You don’t see 60-foot-high power poles around here.”

The brothers insist their opposition is about maintaining a quiet neighborhood in a city growing too fast already. Besides, “we’ve got enough places to worship around here,” David said, with just enough of a wry grin to suggest that Buddhist monks aren’t the neighborhood’s highest priority.

Htoon doesn’t need a pagoda to fall on him to understand that.

Still, when I asked if he thought the council’s action had a discriminatory tinge, he replied, “How can I say something that I don’t know? There must be some other reason why they are doing this to us.”

The council questioned why the monks needed so much space (about 20,000 square feet for the two buildings). Members said they might be open to relocating the monastery. Htoon said he isn’t sure what the owners will do next.

“I don’t know. I’m very tired in this project,” said Htoon, a Los Angeles County public works employee. “I’m relaxing now, and I don’t know what my friends [the owners] want to do.”

I asked Htoon if the protracted battle taught him anything. “I have tasted the American system of public hearings,” he said, laughing.

And the residual taste in your mouth, I asked.

“I don’t want to comment on that,” he said, still chuckling. “I just want to say I’ve tasted it.”

He did have a question for me, though. “Why does the city spend all that money to appoint professionals, let them do an evaluation, approve a project, and then suddenly the City Council can have a different position? That is the only thing I keep pondering.”

I was going to say something about putting a religious sanctuary near a residential area, then I remembered the Mormon Church that would abut the monastery. Then I remembered that the proposed monastery more than met zoning requirements. Then I remembered, a few miles down Fairmont, a sign that greeted me as I turned the corner and headed into a residential area: “Future Home of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church.”

With all that floating in my head, I had to admit to Htoon I was stumped.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.