Barbara Diamond The proposed expansion of St....

Barbara Diamond

The proposed expansion of St. Catherine of Siena Church is tearing up

the neighborhood even before construction starts. Opponents say they are

fighting to keep their view and pathway access while church officials are

crying foul over delays in approving the project.

The Design Review Board has already held two hearings on the St.

Catherine expansion, Feb. 28 and April 18. A third hearing is scheduled

for May 9.

“Members of the board are being lobbied by both sides,” said board

member Steven Kawaratani. “The church is struggling to be a good neighbor

and still build the project it wants and the neighbors are struggling to

be good neighbors and still retain views, airflow and some street

parking.”

The proposed project, which includes a three-story addition, doubles

the original square footage of the church, but does not make provisions

for off-street parking. The church also proposes dense landscaping on the

rear of the property and closure of a pathway that uphill neighbors use

as shortcut down to town. Kawarantani said the project is approvable. He

declined to comment on specific issues until the next public meeting on

the project.

Revisions to the original proposal, made after the Feb. 28 meeting,

lowered the addition’s ridge line by a half foot, reduced square footage

and pushed back the project from the street. A newly revised plan was

filed Wednesday. No new staking plan was included.

Church officials and supporters said the $3.5 million renovation is

necessary to make the church and grounds earthquake-proof, more usable

and beautiful for neighbors and church members. They claim the city is

not treating the project fairly and that comments made at the April 18

meeting were unseemly.

“I was in a small boil,” said the Rev. Eamon O’Gorman, church pastor.

Opponents of the submitted project said at the April 18 meeting that

despite the revisions the addition was still too massive for the

neighborhood, the three-story addition too high and runoff from the

church property would cause flooding downhill.

“If you want free water, come up and look at Temple Terrace,” said

resident Ervin Watkins.

The design review board has recommended that the church work with city

staff on a drainage plan.

In a letter to the city dated April 23, O’Gorman wrote that the church

had complied, at some cost, with all the recommendations made by the

board at the Feb. 28 meeting, but were presented April 18 with a new list

of requirements, some of them he called unreasonable.

“For some reason not immediately recognized, you made our application

a ‘catholic’ issue,” O’Gorman wrote. “The scope and details of your

recent demands will be covered in a future letter to the mayor and the

City Council from our legal counsel.”

O’Gorman also took exception to the characterization by some board

members that the addition was for business.

It was the height and mass of the proposed project, the drainage uses

planned for the addition and the location of a transformer near the

street that neighbor Carol Reynolds spoke about at the meeting.

Neighbor Linda Leahy said she shared neighborhood concerns about the

location of a transformer. O’Gorman said Tuesday that the church’s

architect is working with Edison to resolve neighbors’ concerns about the

transformer.

In all, 11 residents spoke against the project at the April 18

meeting. There was no public testimony in favor of the project.

Some downhill neighbors fear that increased church activity will

exacerbate the traffic problem, which they say clogs Temple Terrace

during church services.

Curb modifications and re-striping is expected to result in a gain of

six or eight parking spaces on the street.

Neighbors above the project had some different concerns about the

project.

The Temple Hills Neighborhood Assn., which represents about 750

households, opposed the closure of the pathway on the south side of the

property and requested revisions in the proposed landscaping that would

impact views.

Board members Eve Plumb, Suzanne Morrison and Kawaratani supported the

church’s right to close the pathway at the first hearing in February. In

the past the city required South Coast Medical Center to retain a public

pedestrian pathway through its property as a condition of approval for

the cancer center project.