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March 19, 2009

CB14 Says No To Japanese Sect's Church Plans

583-East-23rd-Street-Brooklyn-0309.jpgAccording to a tipster, a Japanese religious sect that wanted a variance to build a temple up to the lot line on a residential street in Midwood was voted down earlier this month by Community Board 14. According to DOB records, the Tenseishinbika Religious Organization, which paid $620,000 for the 50-by-100-foot lot in 2007, wanted to build a two-story building at 583 East 23rd Street in South Midwood without the required 15-foot front yard. Of course, in the end, the community board's opinion is just that—it has no legal power to stop the project, and we all know which way the BSA leans. GMAP




Posted by Brownstoner at 9:30 AM | Comments (19)
Categories: Development, Midwood

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never mind the BSA....They can just sue in federal court of limiting religion. Hard to stop all those believers and their religions.

Posted by: Petebklyn at March 19, 2009 9:46 AM

Click on their website...its like a bad karaoke video!!! These kind of religious organizations are scary.

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at March 19, 2009 10:01 AM

Midwood is full of synagogues, yeshivas, and mikvahs that have received variances to waive height, yard, and setbck requirements. The BSA is going to need a good reason, other than the applicant's lack of political pull, to deny this one, given their track record in the area.

Posted by: Sparafucile at March 19, 2009 10:23 AM

What a relief, they're Japanese! Unlike our bloater-building Flatbush buddies the Hasidim, the Japanese can be safely abominated without worrying about sounding biased (sort of like the French). We expect bonsai at best and sicko anime cartoons at worst from our rare encounters with Japanese culture here in Brooklyn; we do NOT expect cults building bloaters on the streets of Midwood. Let us go and shame them.

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at March 19, 2009 10:28 AM

anyone think its possible to comment on this without a slap at another group? Nope- didn't think so.

Posted by: bxgrl at March 19, 2009 10:51 AM

Bxgrl;

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. A casual walk through Midwood and Borough park will show that almost every Hasidim synagogue is oversized, that is, at variance with the prevailing code. There is not an inch of yard with these structures. I don't knock the hasidim for this, I do knock a hypocritical CB that is using a small,powerless religious group to "flex". They are shocked, SHOCKED that they are asking for such a variance. Once again, it's hypocritical.

Posted by: benson at March 19, 2009 11:11 AM

In this case, bxgirl, the "another group" angle is a big part of the story. And this group may be a doozie (forgive me, I'm a conspiracy-theory connoisseur as well as a fan of X-treme cultural diversity). In a turbo-googling, I found practically nothing in English available on the Web about this cult, which has apparently got some humongous, spanking-new and architecturally glitzy mega-temples throughout Japan. The few references from American ex-pats describe a Jehovah's-Witness-like door-to-door ministry complete with a quaint hand-raising gesture to beam healing rays into one's body and spirit; one naive-sounding artist blogger is warned by his reticent but disapproving Japanese landlord that they "seem kind on the outside, but are bad on the inside." [Journalist Spidey Sense needle goes into Red Zone.] The story, Columbia J-School young'uns, is this: Why have these folks chosen to land in Brooklyn (as opposed to, say, the more geographically and spiritually proximate planet of California) for what seems to be their first colonization outpost in the constellation America?

I'm busy today, but any gumshoes out there are welcome to start with this info from their DOB filing referenced above:
MASATOMO IJICHI
Relationship to Owner: DIRECTOR
Business Name: TENSEISHINBIKAI USA, INC
Business Phone: 212-984-1045
Business Address: 100 PARK AVENUE 16TH FLOOR NEW YORK NY 10017

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at March 19, 2009 11:13 AM

benson, brenda- I can't argue with that- I'm no fan of cults, even within my own religion. All cults are dangerous imho. I certainly agree with you on the hypocrisy of the board. It just makes me nervous when people point to the Hasidim and then it all goes downhill from there. Personally I disagree with much of what they do and how they live. I doubt they even consider me a Jew in any case. I think I was just making the point about bringing up the Hasidim in re this-

on another note, I believe the tinfoil helmet will fully protect me but I am adding drapes of the same material as well :-)

Posted by: bxgrl at March 19, 2009 12:06 PM

Fortunately, the beliefs of the cult in question are not within the BSA's purview. They need to make their findings based on hardship, unique site characteristics, impact on surrounding land uses, and whether the relief being sought is the minimum needed.

If an Orthodox congregation says that they require extra building height so women can be segregated in the balcony, the BSA will accept that as a legitimate programmatic requirement that may be entitled to relief from the zoning's bulk regulations.

The point is that they've been very accommodating in waiving zoning requirements for religious uses in this area, so one hopes this cult is treated the same as Brooklyn's better-established cults.

Posted by: Sparafucile at March 19, 2009 12:17 PM

Sparacile, maybe brenda can make this clearer than I can, but there is a difference between a sect and a cult. The Hasidim are sects, not cults- although some of them do seem awfully close to being cults. They are also diverse and of varying degrees of orthodoxy. While they do seem outside the mainstream, basically they are Jewish and to varying degrees, practice the same faith as Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews. I've thought a cult was a religious group that defined its own set of beliefs, which often revolve around a charismatic individual a la Jim Jones. Sometimes I find it nearly impossible to see where one ends and the other begins, I guess.

Posted by: bxgrl at March 19, 2009 12:31 PM

My point is that one person's cult is another person's sect and another person's one true path to salvation. And that such subjective distinctions should be irrelevant to a land use decision-making body.

And following your definition of a cult, I would think that Rebbe Schneerson qualifies as just such a charismatic individual, some of whose followers consider to be the Messiah.

Posted by: Sparafucile at March 19, 2009 12:40 PM

I agree- that group is a cult- but on theother hand, while they worship Schneerson as a great rebbe and Messiah, they still do so well within the Judaic system of belief. In other words, Schneerson was not promoting his own brand of religion- or even himself as a Messiah- his real power came from his teachings and interpretation of the Torah and Jewish law. Judaism has a long tradition of ....er...discussions of the meaning of the Torah and in fact these arguments are incorporated into our religion in the Talmud and the Midrash. I guesss the closest analogy would be the End Times Evangelical Christians.Extreme interpretations of Christianity but still well within the parameters of it.

Whereas the spaceship coming soon is not.

Posted by: bxgrl at March 19, 2009 1:10 PM

Cult vs sect is a great way to start a table-pounding argument with spittle flecks a'flyin'. To an aggressive atheist, I'm sure my Roman Catholicism is a cult; to a Scientologist, Xenu is part of a Real Religion, man. It is, as they say, a spectrum, but on the cultish side of the spectrum you will find distinctive characteristics such as mind control, highly centralized personal authority over members in one charismatic leader, secretiveness, pseudo-gnostic initiation rites, stigmatization and shunning (or worse) of members who wish to leave, and demand that members surrender earthly goods and $$ to the group. There are sects within organized religions, and there are cults within sects.

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at March 19, 2009 2:03 PM

Oh I know, having engagined in many table pounding, spittle flecks a flyin' ...um....discussions :-)

Its such a difficult subject- I think the more desperate the person, the more extreme they can become but religion and faith I think are necessary and have brought much good. Huge downsides though. Sometimes I wonder if we aren't all too human to be entrusted with faith?

Posted by: bxgrl at March 19, 2009 4:07 PM

In spite of its name South Midwood is a late Victorian community( approx. 1899-1910) NORTH of what is now called Midwood (originally Nottingham, Manhattan Park, et al). South Midwood is largely bordered by Glenwood Rd, Foster Ave., Bedford Ave and E. 21 St). There are three churches in the community: two are Gothic and one Romanesque with a touch of Arts & Crafts detailing. There are no synagogues, either traditional or modern. CB14 voted against the granting of an oversize variance for the Japanese temple because the plans submitted to the board were incomplete. Many board members also expressed puzzlement at the "out of context" design of the structure: a two storey rectangle with rounded front entrance, flat roof, and an exterior of white metal.
BSA rarely considers the advice of commmunity boards, so it is likely that this strange, bloated building will mar one of the non-landmarked sections of Victorian Flatbush.

Posted by: Mansfield at March 20, 2009 6:30 PM

In spite of its name South Midwood is a late Victorian community( approx. 1899-1910) NORTH of what is now called Midwood (originally Nottingham, Manhattan Park, et al). South Midwood is largely bordered by Glenwood Rd, Foster Ave., Bedford Ave and E. 21 St). There are three churches in the community: two are Gothic and one Romanesque with a touch of Arts & Crafts detailing. There are no synagogues, either traditional or modern. CB14 voted against the granting of an oversize variance for the Japanese temple because the plans submitted to the board were incomplete. Many board members also expressed puzzlement at the "out of context" design of the structure: a two storey rectangle with rounded front entrance, flat roof, and an exterior of white metal.
BSA rarely considers the advice of commmunity boards, so it is likely that this strange, bloated building will mar one of the non-landmarked sections of Victorian Flatbush.

Posted by: Mansfield at March 20, 2009 6:30 PM

In spite of its name South Midwood is a late Victorian community( approx. 1899-1910) NORTH of what is now called Midwood (originally Nottingham, Manhattan Park, et al). South Midwood is largely bordered by Glenwood Rd, Foster Ave., Bedford Ave and E. 21 St). There are three churches in the community: two are Gothic and one Romanesque with a touch of Arts & Crafts detailing. There are no synagogues, either traditional or modern. CB14 voted against the granting of an oversize variance for the Japanese temple because the plans submitted to the board were incomplete. Many board members also expressed puzzlement at the "out of context" design of the structure: a two storey rectangle with rounded front entrance, flat roof, and an exterior of white metal.
BSA rarely considers the advice of commmunity boards, so it is likely that this strange, bloated building will mar one of the non-landmarked sections of Victorian Flatbush.

Posted by: Mansfield at March 20, 2009 6:30 PM

In spite of its name South Midwood is a late Victorian community( approx. 1899-1910) NORTH of what is now called Midwood (originally Nottingham, Manhattan Park, et al). South Midwood is largely bordered by Glenwood Rd, Foster Ave., Bedford Ave and E. 21 St). There are three churches in the community: two are Gothic and one Romanesque with a touch of Arts & Crafts detailing. There are no synagogues, either traditional or modern. CB14 voted against the granting of an oversize variance for the Japanese temple because the plans submitted to the board were incomplete. Many board members also expressed puzzlement at the "out of context" design of the structure: a two storey rectangle with rounded front entrance, flat roof, and an exterior of white metal.
BSA rarely considers the advice of commmunity boards, so it is likely that this strange, bloated building will mar one of the non-landmarked sections of Victorian Flatbush.

Posted by: Mansfield at March 20, 2009 6:30 PM

We all deal with issue of wanting things to never change, especially when we have bought into a neighborhood or have grown up there...well, things do change and always will. Every neighborhood in Brooklyn has had multiple shifts in population. That is what the melting pot is. Even remotely invoking religious or ethnic intolerance is a sad way to go, especially in a multicultural locale like Brooklyn. We can all get off course here, but spiritual organizations have been around forever and their have been "spin-offs" of such communities have so, too. Just because a such group is relatively young or not "original" to Brooklyn or the US doesn't make it a cult. Let's stop fighting and be more welcoming of the inevitable...Brooklyn and the world keep on changing and it's always refreshed us. OK, it's just my two cents and wish for peace.

Posted by: adventurepuss at October 26, 2009 4:36 PM

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