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Church Announces Site for Sacramento Temple
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA -- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints announced last week that the Sacramento California Temple will be
built next to a current LDS Stake Center near Folsom, California, off
Highway 50 and Folsom Boulevard. Plans call for a 59,000-square-foot
building which will serve about 73,000 church members located in the
area from Chico, California to Stockton, California.
The site is one of four that LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley
toured last February, ahead of the Church's April announcement that a
Temple would be built in the Sacramento area. Pending zoning approvals,
construction is expected to begin in six to eight months, and take two
years to complete.
Zoning may have played a role inthe site's selection. The site is
currently zoned for industrial use, and has no close residential
neighbors who might object to the traffic or other effects of the Temple
on neighbors. In many recent cases, fears and objections by neighbors
have delayed the construction of Temples or changed plans. In Boston,
for example, objections and lawsuits by neighbors delayed the
construction of a Temple there for years and in Nashville, Tennesee,
objections led the Church to change sites and scale down the building
from one of similar size to the Sacramento Temple to a "smaller" Temple
of about 10,000 square feet. Most recently, delays brought on by
opposition from neighbors led the Church to file a civil rights lawsuit
against Harrison, New York, where it is seeking to build another 50,000-
plus-square-foot Temple.
In the Sacramento case, the LDS Church will have to seek a zoning change
to allow construction of the Temple, however, since the current zoning
is industrial, and since the building doesn't have close residential
neighbors, the Church will likely not encounter significant opposition.
The Sacramento site is part of a 46-acre plot that the Church has owned
since 1972. It currently includes not only a Stake Center but also a
recreational center, a former commercial property that the Church has
refurbished. The recreational facilities include tennis courts, baseball
fields and playground equipment.
Source:
Mormons to build temple in Sacramento County
Sacramento CA Bee 21Dec01 D1
By Bill Lindelof: Bee Staff Writer
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