Fairview faces legal threat as P&Z votes down proposed LDS temple design: "They're being a bully"
FAIRVIEW – Rose Oswald's home in Fairview faces land where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints plans to build a temple.
"This is in my front yard essentially," Oswald said, looking out at the lot.
Designs show the proposed building would be nearly twice the size of the town hall with a 173-foot steeple as tall as 16-story building.
It's far too big, neighbors say, for this small residential town.
"Never could I have imaged that we would consider putting a building of that size on that lot," Oswald said.
At a packed meeting Thursday night, a church spokesperson told the town's Planning and Zoning Committee that every aspect of the temple's design serves a religious purpose with symbols like the steeple, meant to draw the eye upwards to heaven.
The committee, though, sided with neighbors and voted to recommend council members reject the proposal. Mayor Henry Lessner said, that's exactly what he plans to do.
"I can only speak for myself. I will never approve that," he said. "It is just grossly out of proportion to everything around there."
The city says it's received 350 messages from Fairview residents about the proposal. The vast majority, 87% of them, expressed opposition to the temple's design.
It's received more than twice as many from non-residents, with 89% of those messages in favor of it.
The church, widely known as the Mormon Church, has faced similar disputes in other cities amid a boom in construction. Last year, it sued the town of Cody, Wyoming to get a temple built.
The mayor says the church's local attorney has threatened it'd sue Fairview too.
"They're an extraordinarily wealthy religion. We're a little town in North Texas…" he said. "They're being a bully in a way."
The church told CBS News it is confident legal precedence supports construction of its temple in Fairview.
Neighbors, meanwhile, have organized to fight it.
"It's a David and Goliath story. And we're the David," said Lisa Foradori, which lives nearby. "Building a ginormous 16-story church in a residential area just isn't keeping it country."