By Carolyn Schuk

 

Last week the question of whether the congregation of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel can replace the windows in their 104 year-old church building reached the Santa Clara City Council.

 

The dispute between the church and the City planning department has been running since December 2007, when the City ordered the church to stop work on its window replacement project following a complaint. In 2007, Our Mother of Perpetual Help commissioned new stained glass windows that would reflect the church's traditional Latin liturgical style. Two of the windows were installed and the artist is storing the rest.

 

The church's position is that under California law -- AB 133, 1994 -- buildings used for religious purposes can exempt themselves from some preservation ordinances if these would pose an unreasonable burden or interfere with the free practice of religion.

 

"I have tried to be restrained about this," said Chapel coordinator Patrick Clark last Tuesday. "We are definitely suffering financial losses on this. We have $30,000 to $40,000 of stained glass windows and we will have to take other measures if we can't resolve it peacefully"

 

The planning department has asked the church to submit architectural drawings of the church and the proposed windows, according to church member Helen Rezendes. Tuesday night Clark pointed out that the drawings will be costly for the small church.

 

"We're asking that they come in and fill out the project application," said Sparacino, who also offered the church with the application. "We will look at the issue. And we will have a meeting of the planning commission to look at this. We'll be very happy to expedite that." The City will also waive the $950 application fee.

 

Mayor Pat Mahan referred the matter to the City Manager's office, and instructed them to work directly with church representatives. "Hopefully we can get this resolved and move forward," Mahan said. "We will confer with the City Manager's office."

 

Clark is taking a wait-and-see approach. "I've been in there twice and we're back to the same point we were when we started," he told the Council. "Why not just use the law that we're exempting ourselves from regulation. This is a religious building not a secular building."

 

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.