Crowd at Hearing Sharply Divided on Church Expansion Plan

A sharply divided crowd of 400 people appeared at a six-hour public hearing downtown Thursday on the controversial $40-million proposal by the Self-Realization Fellowship to expand its international church headquarters in Mt. Washington, but few minds seemed to be changed during the marathon session.

Opinions from more than 60 speakers were evenly split between supporters, who said the proposal was an appropriate move to update its headquarters at the old Mt. Washington Hotel, and opponents, who said the planned expansion is too large and would cause irreparable harm to the northeast Los Angeles community of 8,000.

The afternoon appearance at the microphone of fellowship member Loretta Daines seemed to illustrate the divided feelings about the church’s desire to build new offices, classrooms and living quarters for its cloistered nuns and monks.

The church also wants to reinter the remains of founder Paramahansa Yogananda, who died in 1952, at the headquarters, which members refer to as the mother center.

“My landlady has a ‘Stop SRF Construction’ sign” at the Mt. Washington home where she lives, said Daines. “She has her opinion and I have mine. I support the SRF.”

The proposal has divided neighbors in the hillside enclave since the church said it would seek a permit for the expansion.

Some were outraged that the venerable Mt. Washington Assn., a community group formed to fight a housing project in a nearby uninhabited canyon, refused to take a position on the church’s project. Critics charged that church members and supporters took over the association to quiet criticism of the project, an assertion that church members reject.

Two other groups, including the new Mt. Washington Homeowners Alliance, sprang up to oppose the project.

During Thursday’s hearing, presided over by city zoning administrator R. Nicholas Brown, opposing sides disagreed over the church’s scaled-back proposal, which it said was a 24% reduction in the 206,000 square feet of new space originally sought.

“They waited until the last minute to talk about the reduced concept,” complained opposition spokesman Daniel Wright. “They should have addressed the reductions” in their official papers for the project.

Not so, replied Miles Hyde, an official with the nondenominational church. “We sought a consensus on the plan, and we talked to a variety of community groups [in the past six months]. They were comfortable with our current staffing, and we keep that level in the reduced plan.”

Brown, for one, wasn’t fully aware of the so-called reduced plan, telling the audience that he just received it Wednesday.

The confusion over the reduced project, which may take as much as 10 years to complete, prompted Brown to have Thursday’s hearing continue Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. in Room 170 at 201 N. Figueroa St. Brown asked church officials to hold a briefing that day on the reduced plan.

Brown is expected to issue a ruling in several weeks on the expansion application, but that will probably not stop the debate. The issue may end up before the City Council.