Ever Expanding Korean Baptist Church, San Jose

San Jose Plannign Commision goes against its own decisions!

Families often move to a bigger homes when they outgrow their current dwellings, they do not buy the adjacent home and use both houses. However, this is exactly what the Church located at 1056 Pinewood drive did and the members of Planning Commission, in the city of San Jose granted the Church permit on12th October, 2005 to use those five homes legally.
In 1978, the same council, albeit different members , promised the neighbors of the church the following :

"No Future expansion shall be allowed on the subject site".

I was appalled. I could not believe that this could happen after our neighborhood went to the city Planning meetings and spoke about all the troubles we had had with this particular church.
My husband and I bought our home in 1995 and we share over 100 feet of our boundary with the church. We knew that there was a church behind but we were told by the original owners about the "No more Expansion". We would never have bought the house, had we known that the San Jose Council does not stand by its own rulings. We would have called law enforcement several times since 1996 for dangerous parking spillovers from the church's congregation on Sundays and noise disturbances. By illegally using these five homes for Sunday schools or other church activities, the church has violated both the city code and fire department safety codes. I did not make any complaints against the noise or parking issue because I believed in the mandate passed in 1978 and 1996. I was willing to live with these issues as long as there was no further expansion.
We expected the city to stand by their past mandates. We trusted them.We were naive.

How hard is it to recognize that the neighbors of the church do not want any change especially when each time the church tries to expand, we protest. The church is nestled in the midst of residential homes but they bought five houses and now want these single family homes to get "Conditional User Permit". Once permit is granted, this will be the first step for this church to expand. I fully expect them to raze these houses to the ground and rebuild until I have this huge complex behind my house. This church takes a mile even when an inch was not given - imagine what they would do now - all in the name of the good Lord.

I am still trying to figure out how it is moral and ethical for the church to buy these five single family homes when they were told that they would be no more expansion at this site. I wonder how they rationalize all this - I suppose it is always okay if it is done in the name of the good Lord. Sounds familiar- huh.

Well, at the final Planning commission meeting at the swanky new City Hall, when KBC got the permit, a lot of the congregation spoke up and said totally irrelevant things like how wonderful their church was and a great place for their young. They talked about being immigrants and assimilating to American society etc. Well, yes, I am an immigrant too - and raised in a Baptist home to boot - but what has this got to do with the church encroaching upon a residential neighborhood? Besides, none of the parisherners live in the immediate vicinity of their wonderful church so what do they know about what it is like to be the neighbor of their church? What is so great for them is merely a source of great distress for me. Even through double pane windows, I can hear them and it is not as pretty as they think.

Unless, you live in my house, hear the things I hear and see the things I see - their words don't mean much and are nothing but more noise