Sufism Reoriented Plan for Facility in Saranap Neighborhood Gets Another Hearing

A proposal for a 66,074-square-foot Sufism Reoriented facility in the unincorporated Saranap neighborhood of Walnut Creek gets yet another public hearing before the Contra Costa County Planning Commission tonight.

The hearing, at 7 p.m. in Room 107 in the County Administration Building, Pine and Escobar streets, Martinez, will focus on the religious organization's requests for a land use permit and approval of a minor subdivision.

Previous hearings have attracted crowds and thousands of written comments on the plan. The design calls for a sanctuary building with multiple domes, much of it below ground, that would include a prayer hall, classrooms, offices and other facilities.

It would be located in an area zoned for single-family homes, although the entrance to the facility would be from a stretch of Boulevard Way lined with apartment buildings and commercial and office buildings. Sufism Reoriented wants permission to merge seven lots into a single parcel for the building.

Opponents of the project have cited aesthetics, air quality, traffic and soil quality as concerns.

Sufism Reoriented leaders say the building will be used for religious, cultural and educational programs for its 350-member congregation.

Sufism Reoriented is a nonprofit religious corporation, established in 1952. It has 500 members in the United States and two existing sanctuaries. One is in the Washington, D.C., area; the other is in a building on Boulevard Way, about a quarter mile east of the project site. Sufism Reoriented also runs the K-5 Meher School and White Pony preschool in Lafayette.

You may read more about the proposal in this Walnut Creek Patch article about the project's environmental impact review and this one about opponents' requests for more time to study the project.

You may download the meeting agenda and numerous reports on the project at the planning commission website.