Give-and-Take on Development

Beach Boulevard in Buena Park, with its Movieland Wax Museum, Knott’s Berry Farm and replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, may have some local quirky charm, but for zoning purposes, it is not exactly colonial Williamsburg. It’s puzzling that city leaders would turn down summarily a complex for a Los Angeles-based Hindu group. All the fretting seems less about the project--which easily could be scaled back--and more about the size of the welcome mat for a group with unfamiliar beliefs and traditions. Some of that can be addressed if the group would do more homework the next time it comes before the city.

What it proposed as a starter was huge. A 20,000-square-foot temple would anchor a sprawling site that would include a remodeled 150,000-square-foot convention center and 100-room hotel. This ought to have been a first volley, to be followed by scaling down the project to appropriate size. This is always part of the give-and-take of planning.

The speed of rejection by the City Council suggests that the decision had more to do with discomfort with the petitioner than the proposal. This is getting to be a familiar pattern in Orange County, where Buddhists in Yorba Linda and Muslims in Rancho Santa Margarita have faced rejection or difficulty with churches or schools on the basis of objections not easy to pin down.

There are legitimate issues of size, scale and traffic. This is not only so in Orange County. Around the nation, the size of houses of worship has put local zoning officials in conflict with the religious groups that are thinking big.

Still, the Buena Park complex seems to have never had a chance. At a council meeting earlier this month, residents raised objections over everything from traffic to the city’s image. The neighborhoods should have a say in what they have to live with. However, proponents from the Los Angeles area chapter of the international Hindu sect, Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, understandably were taken by surprise when, without warning, the council rejected the project.

Buena Park clearly doesn’t want “a soaring edifice that would grace the city,” as a proponent argued this would be. It may be that the group could have found out more about what the city might accept before going forward. They say they want to come back, and should do more preparation next time.