No surprise but unfortunate: Sufism Reoriented project approved

The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors Wednesday approved Sufism Reoriented's plans to build a large, white multi-domed sanctuary in the Saranap neighborhood of unincorporated Walnut Creek, reports the Contra Costa Times. 

Four of the five supervisors cast yes votes for the worship center, to be built on 3.12 acres off Boulevard Way.. Supervisor Gayle Uilkema, whose district is near the proposed sanctuary, listened to the meeting by phone Wednesday but did not vote.

Elisabeth Nardi will be updating her story later, and Walnut Creek Patch Editor Lance Howland tweeted that the supevisors had added a list of conditions for the 66,000-square-foot project. 

The approval comes following an all-day special public hearing last Tuesday at the Lesher Center for the Arts and several hours of testimony Wednesday. 





 

Sufism Reoriented vows federal fight over disputed sanctuary plans

At Tuesday’s special Contra Costa County supervisors meeting,  more than 100 people spoke out on many things for and against a religious group’s plans to build a big white 66,000-square-foot center in the unincorporated Saranap neighborhood of Walnut Creek.

And then  someone at the hearing at Walnut Creek's downtown Lesher Center for the Arts invoked the dreaded RLUIPA. The meaning behind this gag-inducing set of initials has the potential to take this dispute to a new and very litigious  level.

(Check out other big white monuments -- to power and ego? -- that grace communities near and far: The Mormon Temple in Oakland, of which the sanctuary would be two-thirds the size; the 58,000-square-foot building at 1500 Newell Avenue; the 55,000-square-foot White House; the 57,000-square-foot "manor" of late Charlie's Angels and Dynasty producer Aaron Spelling.)

The RLUIPA threat has always surrounded this issue, hovering in the background. But now we know how far Sufism Reoriented is prepared to go to defend its multi-domed complex, much of which will be built underground. In a statement to the supervisors, Sandy Skaggs, an attorney for Sufism Reoriented said,  “We are very prepared to defend this in court,” according to the Contra Costa Times.

The mechanism for this court fight would be RLUIPA, which stands for the 2000 federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. This law bars government entities from imposing land use regulations that create a "substantial burden" on a group's right to religious assembly. 

But constitutional scholar Marci Hamilton describes it as a law that can be burdensome to neighbors who oppose a church group’s expansion plans. Hamilton wrote a book God Versus the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law in which she devotes a chapter to church-state disputes in land-use issues. 

Before RLUIPA, religious landowners in virtually every jurisdiction in the United States “were just landowners,” writes Hamilton in her book. She is the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.

Once upon a time, these landowners had to abide by zoning restrictions and take into account the views of homeowners regarding the impact of their proposal, she says. “They were property owners with equal rights under the land use law with all other property owners, and they had to be a good neighbor.”

RLUIPA changed all that, shifting the balance of power in residential neighborhoods to religious landowners, at the expense of the residential quality of the neighborhood, she says.

President Bill Clinton signed RLUIPA into law. Hamilton says Clinton never met a religious cause he would not support, and Congress made no effort to determine independently whether this “special interest legislation” was good for the people, Hamilton writes.

Congressional supporters of RLUIPA just went along with it, because religious leaders wanted it, Hamilton says. Religious organizations, with their growing political clout, lobbied for the law. The U.S. Supreme Court had invalidated as unconstitutional an earlier federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which basically gave religious entities a loophole for skirting all local, state and federal laws, including land-use laws.

Now with RLUIPA, residential landowners who face ambitious religious building plans don’t have the same right to equal protection, Hamilton contends. RLUIPA essentially creates two classes of citizens. “The first class is s ‘religious’ and the second class envelops everyone else. It is fundamentally unfair, as any homeowner who has been in this circumstance will tell you.’

Unfortunately, city and county entities are inclined to give in to religious organizations’ demands because, in these budget-challenged times, they can’t afford costly and lengthy court fights. Neighbors opposing a church’s plans usually don’t have the resources for a legal fight, either.

As Halfway to Concord blogger Wendy Lack pointed out, Sufism Reoriented had itself changed to an IRS-approved religious organization in 2003 after operating a nonprofit corporation since the 1950s. Gearing up for the big RLUIPA fight?

Sufism Reoriented might also have the deep pockets for a court challenge, reporting annual income for three years in a row of about $2.5 million and $17 million in assets. Cheesecake Factory CEO David M. Overton is a financial supporter, Lack reported.

The County Planning Commission gave the sanctuary proposal a thumbs up. Saranap residents appealed, and now it’s in the hands of supervisors who will continue their deliberations Wednesday.

In an editorial Thursday, the Contra Costa Times said Saranap residents have legitimate concerns about the project. It has more square footage than a football field and more than two-thirds that of the Mormon Temple in Oakland, which sits on 18 acres. The Sufism plan “would be jammed into three.”

In addition to size, the proposal has other serious problems, the Times said: the safety of the driveway access near a major road bend and “horribly inadequate parking.” 

The Sufis have been  playing the religious discrimination card all along, which is rather disappointing for a group is said to be forward thinking and community oriented. “Religious freedom does not give a faith community the right to run roughshod over reasonable planning guidelines and does not make those who question such a move bigots,” the Times editorial said. “The First Amendment protects not only religious expression, but speech as well. Residents are entitled to have their say -- and they should be listened to.”

For extensive coverage of Tuesday's hearing, go to Walnut Creek Patch. 

Previous Crazy in Suburbia posts:

Big, ugly “spaceship-looking” building or beautiful “sacred place?” Religious group’s sanctuary plans divide once tranquil WC/Lafayette neighborhood, March 15, 2009

Saranap neighbors protest large "spaceship-looking" Sufism sanctuary, March 17, 2009

Which would you rather have in your neighborhood? Sufism Reoriented's 66,000-square-foot sanctuary or Aaron Spelling's 57,000-square-foot "Manor?"March 28, 2009

Is Saranap's Sufism Reoriented sanctuary debate heating up again? Nov. 30, 2009

County requests EIR for controversial Sufism Reoriented sanctuary project Feb. 26, 2010

Sufism Reoriented says it, not the county, initiated the request for an EIR for its new sanctuary April 7, 2010

A Matter of Religious Freedom Nov. 1, 2011

A fundamental showdown: When a church group wants to expand its house of worship in a residential neighborhood Dec. 2, 2011

Supervisors should not cave to religious freedom arguments in the debate about the Sufism Reoriented sanctuary Feb. 19, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

Supervisors should not cave to religious freedom arguments in the debate about the Sufism Reoriented sanctuary

Call me anti-religious. But Sufism Reoriented's desire to build a big white complex in Walnut Creek's residential Saranap community shouldn't get any more consideration than any secular property owner whose grandiose construction ambitions ignite neighborhood concerns.


The three-year-old controversy is now in the hands of Contra County Board of Supervisors. They will hold a special all-day hearing at Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts Tuesday. Hundreds are expected to speak at the meeting, at which the supervisors will decide on an appeal by Saranap neighbors who disagree with the county Planning Commission's November decision to allow the 66,000-square-foot sanctuary to rise on 3.12 acres on Boulevard Way. 


All along, the 350-member organization has said that the white, multi-domed design of their proposed  sanctuary embodies "our most sacred beliefs and supports our worship."  The
Contra Costa County Interfaith Council supports the Sufi plan, with the Rev. Brian Stein-Webber, director of the council, telling the Contra Costa Times that religions, even those outside the mainstream, as Sufism Reoriented is, should have a right to build within their community. Opposition to design elements of the project are the result of unintended religious bias, one Sufism member, Pascal Kaplan, said during testimony before the Planning Commission. 


Sure, religious organizations should be able to build in their communities, but they shouldn't receive special consideration to build what they want just because they are a religious organization.


In a post in December, I quoted constitutional scholar Marci Hamilton, an expert on church-state relations, on the problems that arise when church organizations gain special privileges in land use and other disputes. A federal law, such as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, shifts the balance of power in residential neighborhoods to religious landowners. "The residential quality of a neighborhood takes a back seat to the interests of the church group," she wrote in her book God versus the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law. "The untoward result is that homeowners become second-class citizens to their religious neighbors."  


Hamilton supports religious freedom, but wants reasonable limits for the good of everyone. "Religion's force can be just another iteration of the drive to power," she writes, saying that Americans should get over an unrealistic and hazardous belief "that religion is always for the good."
She says that "some religious conduct deserves freedom and some requires limitation."


It's possible that religious issues will come up in Tuesday's meeting. religious grounds.


County planning staff have recommended that the supervisors deny the appeal and allow the project to go forward. Most of their reasons for approval hinge on their opinion that Sufism Reoriented has adequately addressed parking, traffic and other environmental impacts. Essentially, staff says the single-family residential high-density zoning in that area allows for churches and religious institutions. The proposed sanctuary meets all the necessary development standards, which are the same for religious buildings as they for residential structures.

But staff also cites Sufism religious practices as a reason for approving its size and design. Neighbors object to the 66,000 square feet -- similar in scale to downtown Walnut Creek's new library or Neiman Marcus department store. They also object to the 13 white domes, saying they are inconsistent with the character of the rest of the neighborhood.


Staff acknowledges that  "the style is unique" but they say it reflects "the central tenants of the applicant's religious beliefs." The organization has also adequately explained its spiritual needs for such a large building, staff say. "The members of Sufism worship and celebrate the founder through the arts, music, drama and dance and therefore, the display, storage and shipping of art, scoring room, prayer hall etc. are necessary."


While Sufism Reoriented says they need this particular design for their religious practices, their desire should not trump neighbors' desire to stop a massive construction project from going in near their homes. As I said, call me anti-religious. Or just say that I agree with Hamilton in the very American ideal of separation of church and state.


In a lot of ways, the Sufism plan is the equivalent of the big ugly house your grandiose neighbor wants to build -- a situation that doesn't necessarily bode well for opponents of the sanctuary project.


I'm sure the homeowners who built that big ugly house on the Alamo hill overlooking Interstate 680 were as dedicated to their views of design and aesthetics as Sufism members are to theirs.


Actually, the county has a tendency to support big ugly houses in unincorporated areas, like that Alamo house or the ones dominating the hill overlooking the Parkmead neighborhood. So, if those projects can go through, I can easily see the Sufism sanctuary project ultimately getting the green light.

Police, residents band together to--they hope--put a stop to wave of Saranap area burglaries

Over the past month, dozens of homes have been broken into in and around the Saranap area. Burglars struck five houses on one street that has just a dozen houses. This is according to Lafayette City Manager Steven Falk.

One positive result, he says, is that neighbors have estaliblished a Google groups email distribution system to alert one another to other crimes, and "to see if they could establish patterns and identify suspects to police."

This collaborative effort may be helping police.

Falk passed along some notes on the crime wave from Lafayette Police Chief Mike Hubbard. He details some of the recent cases, as well as the collaborative efforts among area police departments, including his department and Walnut Creek and Orinda police departments to catch those who are responsible. According to Hubbard, the police are seeing some positive results:

On Tuesday of this week we suffered six residential burglaries. Six in one day! To put this in perspective, we usually have about eight to 10 per month. These burglaries occurred on the east side of the city and appear to have been committed by the same people that have been burglarizing homes in unincorporated Lafayette and Walnut Creek. To tackle the problem on Wednesday, with the help of Walnut Creek PD and Orinda PD, we flooded the area with a team of about ten cars. The result was dismal: we actually had another burglary and didn’t catch anyone.



Wednesday afternoon, however, there was an interrupted burglary in the northern Lafayette, and Walnut Creek PD detectives intercepted the bad guys with their ill-gotten gains still in their vehicle. Along with items that had just been stolen from a home, there were many other items of jewelry in the bad guys’ vehicle.

Because we weren’t sure if these were the same guys, and because we were still determined to stop these burglaries, we put the same team into the field again yesterday. But: still another burglary! This time, however, we got a description of the van and when our crime scene technician just happened to see a vehicle matching the description on the way back from the victim’s house, she radioed the license plate to Detective Hernandez, who traced it to a home in Pittsburg. Upon arriving at that location this afternoon, Hernandez found loads of apparently stolen goods and was able to apprehend a suspect.

With these two arrests, have we solved the crime problem in Lafayette? No. As long as there are bad guys, Lafayette – with its affluence and easy access – will be a target. But with good police work and great neighborhood coordination and activism, we can minimize the problem.

 
Back to the neighborhood Google e-mail distribution.  Falk shared some samples of the kinds of e-mail that neighbors have been sharing with one another and that are likely to help make the neighborhood safe:
 

I noticed a man driving an old blue Chevy Van with tinted windows circling and acting "suspicious" in the neighborhood just a few moments ago (breaking every so often, almost pulling off to the side and then not). I took down the lic plate and called the Sheriff’s department - they are sending someone out as I type this now.  --Danielle

The Sheriff's Dept. is doing an undercover sweep of the area today (Wed.). I saw a suspicious silver Ford Sedan with darkened windows drive through the neighborhood today. I followed it and called it in. As I was calling it in, the Sheriff appeared right after the car. I talked to the Sheriff and he said there are going to be a lot of cars like this going through the neighborhood today. He's just cruising the neighborhood on the look out. This time the car is looking out for us!  --Michelle

I just-saw him too. I also saw a man on a bicycle by Juanita and Kinney just stopped and on a cell phone - very suspicious. The Sheriff drove by and stopped to check him out. --Deb

 

Sufism Reoriented responds to concerns about "story poles" and the size and design of their proposed sanctuary

This is a response from Steve Sardella, a spokesman for Sufism Reoriented, regarding the post I did earlier this week on flyers, objecting to the organization's proposed sanctuary, going up around the Saranap neighborhood. As you can read, the flyers raised questions about why Sufism Reoriented won't erect "story poles," wooden structures marking the outlines of their project in order to give the public a visual sense of its height and size. The blue flyers, affixed to telephone poles, specifically said:

"According to Sufism Reoriented, the Sanctuary Building is too large and complex to put up Story Poles…TOO BIG for Story Poles?!?!?!”

Sardella actually send me a longer, thoughtfully written response to several questions I had asked about the project. I'm only publishing his specific response to the story pole issue now, but plan on publishing his response to those other questions as I raise them in future articles.

I was unhappy to read this flyer because it is another example of someone falsely attributing statements to Sufism Reoriented. We never made the statement: “…the Sanctuary Building is too large…too big… to put up Story Poles.” This latest false claim can be added to other bogus statements that some opponents have made to our neighbors, such as saying our building will be “54 feet tall,” we want to create a “national headquarters” in the Saranap, and that we are an Islamic cult.

We have indeed commented on the idea of story poles, but we have said that many architects now value using high quality computer-generated in-scale renderings to provide viewers with more accurate views of how a building will look in its setting. We’ve had these renderings created and we’ve shared them liberally with our neighbors. I’d be happy to walk the property with you and let you hold up these renderings and verify their accuracy for yourself.

I think the people who put up these flyers on telephone poles would be less concerned with how our church will look if they could understand that after the landscaping matures in 5-6 years, they will hardly be able to see it from any perspective. Two thirds of the building’s space will be unseen underground and the church building on the surface will be practically invisible inside a glade of trees.

I would like people to know that we have tried very hard to have our new church blend into the neighborhood. Some who oppose this new church building have particularly focused on the domes in our design. And yet, these domes have nothing to do with our choosing an architectural style we thought would be interesting. Instead, they have everything to do with our beliefs and creating the exalted quality of interior space beneath those domes in which we can practice our faith. They are not elective to us.

Churches of different faiths are located in residential neighborhoods all over Contra Costa County. Many have tall steeples, spires, crosses, and bell towers that are symbolic of their faith, which can be seen from a great distance and from many angles. Many are also located directly on the street, rather than being set back. Urban planners in America recognize the fact that churches, by their very nature, are houses of worship, not residences. The naturalness of congregations designing their churches to reflect their central principles and beliefs is generally accepted. Ours has been designed to reflect our own beliefs.

Many of our neighbors like the design of our new church as evidenced by the large number of signatures they have registered in support at the County. Many have told us they look forward to having the new church here and enjoying the lovely open gardens. These beautiful gardens are intended to convey a sense of peace, refreshment, and inspiration, and we invite your readers to enjoy them as well.

Is Saranap's Sufism Reoriented sanctuary debate heating up again?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed these blue flyers affixed to telephone polls and other signs along Boulevard Way in the Saranap neighborhood. These flyers once again raise questions about the size of the proposed sanctuary to be built by Sufism Reoriented, a Saranap-based religious organization.

“Too big for story poles?!?!?!” ask the flyers, one of which is pictured here.

“According to Sufism Reoriented, the sanctuary building is too large and too complex to put up story poles.”

Okay, what are story poles, what project am I talking about, and who is behind the flyers?

Sufism Reoriented proposes to construct a white, 66,000-square-foot, multi-domed “sanctuary” on a 3.25-acre site wedged mostly amongst single-family homes in this older, residential neighborhood in unincorporated Walnut Creek.

The project has hit a raw nerve in this neighborhood, with longtime residents complaining that such a large, white “spaceship-looking” building (bigger than the White House) would not fit in the character of their semi-rural neighborhood. The address would be on Boulevard Way, and there are apartments and office buildings along one side.

Sufism Reoriented leaders say the building, particularly the domes, was designed to blend in with the surrounding, grass covered hills. They also say it would be eco-friendly, “nestled in a glade of trees,” and, with two-thirds of it tucked underground, it would not be visible to most neighbors.

Opponents claim it would be highly obtrusive and have asked the 350-member religious organization to erect what are called “story poles.” If you’re not in construction, story poles are wooden structures, often built of 2X4s that are erected on the site of a proposed development to give builders, neighbors, government officials a visual indication of its size and visual impact.

Sanctuary opponents say Sufism is refusing to erect the story poles because they don’t want the neighbors and county planners, who are reviewing the plans, to see how massive the sanctuary truly will be. Apparently, a representative of Sufism reoriented said earlier this year that it would be very costly to erect the story poles and that they are an old-fashioned, inefficient way to really judge a project’s size and visual impact.

Sanctuary opponents, leaders of an organization called Save Our Saranap, deny posting the flyers. It’s also possible that the flyers have been up there a while. However, although I don’t live in the Saranap, I still drive, walk, or run through that area on an almost daily basis, and it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I noticed these flyers.

I’ve e-mailed a representative of Sufism Reoriented to see if the organization has any comment on the flyers and the story pole issue, but haven’t heard back from him yet. If I do, I’ll pass along what he has to say.

As I reported back in March, many Sufism Reoriented members have made the Saranap neighborhood their home, and have apparently co-existed peacefully with their non-Sufism neighbors for decades. But things started to become tense in the neighborhood, when Sufism Reoriented went public with its sanctuary plans. Friends who live in the neighborhood were telling me stories about being bombarded with aggressive door-to-door visits by Sufism members and pro-sanctuary press releases and expensive newsletters.

Sufism Reoriented says it wants to build a beautiful house of worship for its members, where they can also participate in the organization’s many religious, civic, and arts activities.

It’s not clear whether the appearance of these flyers represent some new rise in tensions over this controversial issue. But I’m told that county planners are finishing up their review of the project, and possibly, by the beginning of the new year, it will go back to the neighbors for further discussion and debate.

Walnut Creek man pleads no contest to last summer's killing outside teen house party

Daniel Avanesyan, 19, of Walnut Creek, will be sentenced to seven years in prison in connection with the July 2 fatal stabbing of a Rodeo teen in the unincorporated Saranap neighborhood, the Contra Costa Times reported Saturday.

Tensions between young people from two parts of Contra Costa County ended in violence at a small house party, thrown by a girl whose parents were out of town. The fight broke out near the corner of Clover Lane and Nicholson Road, a normally quiet pocket of older homes off Boulevard Way.

Avanesyan, a Diablo Valley College student, was the boyfriend of the host. She had also invited her male cousin, who brought along several carloads of his buddies, including Jonart Suacillo Yambao, 17, from West Contra Costa County. Apparently Avanesyan's group and Yambao's group had some kind of run-in several weeks earlier. Once at the party, tensions rose, and the female host asked her cousin to leave and take his friends with him.

But a fight broke out, with one of the West County teens attacking Avanesyan in the girl's back yard. He went into the house, got a knife, went outside to the front of the house and found Yambao and another guy jumping on his car and crushing the windshield.

What happened next is unclear, other than that Yambao was stabbed just after midnight, and wound up being driven by his friends to Kaiser medical center in Walnut Creek, where he died.

Avanesyan was originally charged with murder, but the plea deal came about because, the prosecutor told the Times, it would have been hard to prove that the defendant did not act not act under "heat of passion" or that he wasn't defending himself against "provocative acts" committed by Yambao and his friends.

Defense attorney Annie Beles told the Times that Avanesyan acted "out of fear for his life and is taking responsibility." She described him as a "good kid who got spun into an awful situation ... because too may people came to that party looking for trouble."

Detective following up on Saranap stabbing case, but no suspects being sought

Finally heard from Contra Costa Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee about the stabbing near Boulevard Way last Thursday.

(Jimmy apologized pretty heavily for not getting back to me sooner, saying he's been fielding hundreds of calls and e-mails from news organizations, locally and internationally, regarding the Jaycee Dugard case.)

Anyway, what Jimmy had to tell me is pretty much what readers have already shared in comments on the prior story and what was reported in the Contra Costa Times--but with a few new details added. Here's what the Times reported:

Investigators said t that a man who said he was attacked while riding a bicycle Thursday night and stabbed numerous times may not have been telling the truth.

"The circumstances and injuries are inconsistent with the violent attack the victim described," Sgt. Gwen Brady told the TImes.

From a reader:

I talked to the lady that lives in the house where the "attack" took place. It was her grandson, she thought that he may have done this to himself. She said they are trying to figure out what really happened. He is okay, but his story is what I would call iffy.

And here's what Jimmy Lee said the department is releasing this week:

A detective is following up on the case and will be looking at the credibility of the victim's story of what happened. The victim, a 27 year old man, was transported to John Muir Medical Center. As far as the case, there are no suspects, no leads or witnesses. To make it clear, we are not looking for any suspects in this case (at this time).