I know that many of you were discouraged by last weekend’s news concerning the loss of the bell tower.  What happened?  A year ago, the parish presented to the City of Westminster preliminary plans and drawings for the church renovation.  These plans included the bell tower.  Our architect met with the City on a number of occasions during this past year and they never indicated to him that there was a problem with the height of the tower.  It was only three weeks ago that they made their concerns known to us.

What are the City’s concerns?  The property that Holy Trinity Parish sits upon is zoned for residential, not commercial use.  The height of buildings built upon residential property are limited to a maximum of 25 feet.  The City granted a height exemption when we built the Fr. Puhl Center and we were given no reason to expect that there would be any difficulty with our bell tower.  The City has decided not to grant an exemption, however, which they have every right to do.  We only wish that we had been notified last year when we first presented the design to them.

The only way to proceed with the bell tower would be to go through a lengthy and probably very costly process of changing from residential to commercial zoning.  This would mean serious delays to the entire church renovation project, just as we are preparing to begin construction in June.  In other words, to seek a change of zoning would mean that the start of construction would very likely have to be delayed until 2010.  After much consultation, I have decided that it is much better to begin construction now, without the bell tower, rather than incur long delays and extra expense.  Our most recent architectural plans have deleted the bell tower and, be assured, the church still looks very beautiful.