By JOE MURCHISON
Courtesy of Giac Son Buddhist Temple
The Prince George’s County District Council rejected a Buddhist congregation’s detailed site plan Jan. 13 for a temple in South Laurel, dealing the congregation the latest blow in 16 months of setbacks.
The Gian Son Buddhist Temple congregation had submitted the plan in 2023 for its 1.6-acre property on Route 197 south of Snowden Road. The plan called for construction of a one-story 4,625-square-foot temple with a courtyard including a 28-foot-tall statue of Quan Am, a Buddhist goddess of compassion, and other statues. The congregation, which numbers 100 to 200 members, has been using a house on the property for worship and meetings since purchasing it in 2014.
The Prince George’s County Planning Board approved the site plan in September 2023. However, the District Council (the name of the county council when acting on zoning cases) reviewed that decision and sent the plan back to the planning board in January 2024. The District Council said the site plan had, among other problems, incorrect boundary lines. In addition, the stormwater plan had expired, and the size of the building, as indicated in the plan, was underestimated; it actually exceeded 5,000 square feet and therefore required subdivision approval that would entail more submissions and hearings.
District Council members also expressed concern about complaints from neighbors, who said the congregation had illegally cut down trees, leading to flooding issues on nearby properties. They also stated that congregants disturbed the neighborhood with highly amplified chanting and singing during some of its outdoor festivals.
At the District Council’s Jan. 13 hearing, Traci Scudder, attorney for the congregation, said the group had not been given a fair chance to address the council’s concerns. She noted that the county’s zoning law allowed only two months for the planning board to consider a revised site plan and a subdivision application, and that these were, in her words, “impossible time restrictions.”
Scudder also confirmed that with a new temple, the congregation would not use amplified sounds outdoors.
She asked the District Council to approve the previous site plan, which had been revised to include a current stormwater plan. She also said the congregation would submit a revised plan for a temple of less than 5,000 square feet, thereby making the subdivision process unnecessary.
County official Stan Brown countered that Scudder had not submitted any changes to the plan in the two months allowed by the planning board, nor had she requested that the District Council reconsider the difficulties presented by the timeline. “That is not the planning board’s fault; that is not this council’s fault; that is the applicant’s fault,” he said. Brown represents the general interests of county residents in zoning and development hearings.
Councilmember Tom Dernoga (District 1) moved that the site plan be denied. To move forward, the Buddhist congregation will now have to submit a new detailed site plan.
“This temple does good work, and I don’t want to be saying no to this temple,” Dernoga said. “At the same time, there are definitely some issues the neighbors had that were legitimate concerns. … I think if we work at this collaboratively, we can figure out how to get to yes, and sooner rather than later.”
About two weeks after the council’s rejection of the site plan, Dernoga received a copy of an email from Leah Johnson, whose home abuts the congregation’s property. Johnson’s original email, sent to a county inspector, stated that she had been awakened just before midnight on Jan. 28 by drumming and individuals using a loudspeaker. She attached a video that included the sound of fireworks being set off at midnight, in celebration of the start of the Lunar New Year. (Fireworks are illegal in Prince George’s County.)
“No one should have to continue to go through this type of un-neighborly behavior,” Johnson wrote. “Everything they were told not to do, they continue to do.”
In a Feb. 5 interview with The Laurel Independent, Scudder said she had not yet consulted with the congregation’s leaders about their next steps, but she was confident they would keep pursuing the temple project. As for the Lunar New Year fireworks, she said she had heard about the complaint but had not had time to gather more information.
