Trinity appeals permit delay
Deirdre Newman
Trinity Christian Center does not have the patience of Job.
Nine months is too long to wait for the city’s permission to
broadcast outside, say officials for the world’s largest TV ministry,
the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
So on Monday, center officials appealed the Planning Commission’s
postponement of any decision on outdoor broadcasting for nine months.
Last week, the commission unanimously continued the ban it imposed
in February on the international ministry’s outdoor broadcasts until
it sees the center try to alleviate nuisances it has created for its
neighbors.
Trinity officials say the commission’s delay “imposes a
substantial undue burden on [the network’s] ability to conduct its
religious services in a manner it chooses without a valid,
justifiable or legally viable reason,” according to the appeal filed
by John Casoria, who represents the center.
The appeal also suggests that neighbors have an agenda that “has
nothing to do with quality of life issues.”
Neighbors have complained about problems with traffic, noise and
outdoor lighting since the center moved to Costa Mesa in 1996.
“I don’t think they should be outside before they get their act
together with the original permit, and [the commission] put a lot of
conditions on that,” neighbor Lars Sivring said. “They violated the
first permit for years. I think it’s completely right to prove first
that they can live within those conditions before [the city] gives
them anything more.”
Casoria did not return calls for comment.
The center raised the ire of neighbors almost as soon as it moved
to Costa Mesa, according to public testimony at various meetings.
Neighbors began complaining to Trinity, and then city officials,
about traffic, noise and lights from outdoor broadcasting and the
center’s One Million Lights display during the Christmas season.
In 1999, the city told Trinity that it needed another permit to
conduct outdoor broadcasting on a frequent basis. The center refused,
claiming that because it is a church, it did not have to comply. It
eventually acquiesced and applied for the permit late last year.
Although no public hearing was required for the permit to
broadcast outside on a regular basis, it came before the Planning
Commission because of the controversy associated with the center’s
original operating permit.
On Feb. 24, instead of granting the outdoor permit, the commission
shut down the center’s outdoor TV taping activities to give it more
time to review the center’s original permit.
In March, the commission required the center to create a plan to
document how it will handle issues like traffic, landscaping and
equipment and placed certain restrictions on it. The center was given
60 days to create the plan, and city staff will monitor its
effectiveness after six and nine months, when the commission will
reconsider the outdoor broadcasting permit.
The appeal asserts that the center has already started putting
into practice “all of the conditions in a good faith effort to show
its cooperation.”
But Sivring accused the center of already violating some of these
restrictions. He has lodged three complaints about the center
operating machinery in the evenings, he said.
The City Council will consider the appeal on April 21.
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