Tallahassee, FL – Siding with concerned neighbors over religious rights, the Tallahassee/Leon County Planning Commission voted against a proposal to rezone a 2.1-acre lot at Meridian and Plantation roads owned by the Orthodox Jewish congregation of Chabad Lubavitch.
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After hearing from a dozen or so residents of the Plantation Road neighborhood during a two-hour public hearing, the commission rejected staff’s advice to recommend the rezoning, which would let the Chabad expand to 15,000 feet. The synagogue needs the rezoning, which now goes before the City Commission, in order to add non-religious uses such as a day care.
Opponents said the rezoning would allow a building size that’s out of the character with the single-family neighborhood and open the door to more noise and more traffic.
“It’s our older neighborhoods that set us apart,” said Clara Jane Smith, 80, who has lived on Plantation Road for four decades. Without them, “we become just another asphalt jungle.”
But the applicant, Rabbi Schneur Oirechman, said his is a small congregation that’s growing slowly and wouldn’t overwhelm the neighborhood. “We tried to compromise,” he said. “We’re good people.” [Tallahassee Democrat]