CB14 Says No To Japanese Sect's Church Plans
According 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…
According 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
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.
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.
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 🙂
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
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.
anyone think its possible to comment on this without a slap at another group? Nope- didn’t think so.
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.
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.
Click on their website…its like a bad karaoke video!!! These kind of religious organizations are scary.