Divided Sutter County supervisors OK rezoning center

The expansion of a community center south of Yuba City has finally won Sutter County's approval — but only after leaving bad feelings among many neighbors.

A divided Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 3-2 to approve the rezoning of the Walnut Avenue Community Center, allowing its owners to stage nearly an event per week at the building at 1431 Walnut Ave. The new terms take effect in six months.

Afterward, opponents of the community center attacked the evolution of what originally was planned as a Sikh house of worship — and questioned the honesty of its owners.

"When you start with a lie, that lie is forever; if you tell the truth, it don't hurt," said Supervisor Larry Montna, who voted against the rezoning along with Stan Cleveland. "This facility was supposed to be a Sikh temple; it doesn't look like a Sikh temple to me."

Owners of the community center had asked the county to rezone the property from agricultural to commercial use. That move will allow the meeting hall to stage up to 45 events a year — up from 10 — and permit as many as 250 visitors per event.

Supervisors in July conditionally approved the community center's rezoning over the objections of county residents who complained about noise, fighting, heavy traffic and overcrowding at a building set mostly among farm fields.

But the county imposed restrictions that included sound barriers on the north and west sides and a ban on curbside parking in front of the center. Property owners also would have to install stop signs at its two entrances, as well as direct departing vehicles east to Highway 99 after 10 p.m. to channel traffic away from homeowners. Owners are required to make the modifications by the end of the sixth-month waiting period.

The meeting hall opened and gained a county permit in 1996 as a Sikh temple, but opposition to the center has mounted along with its efforts to woo more renters — including an attempt to win permission for 52 events annually and as many as 700 guests at a time.

That bitterness remained with other Walnut Avenue residents who promised to watch the meeting hall for even the slightest permit violations.

"If they go over 250 people, I'll still complain. If the sound barriers don't help, I'll complain too," said Moses Varela, minister of the nearby Apostolic Church of Yuba City.

Another resident — who suggested to the county and owners some of the conditions on the meeting hall expansion — appeared to keep his expectations low.

"I still don't agree with the way the project got done," said Rodney Romness, who lives north of the center. "It just shows you don't have to ask permission, just forgiveness. I just had to see what we could do to make life more bearable."