Bell Tower News

In today’s bulletin, Father Hilton writes:

You’ve noticed that the bell tower is back on the cover of this week’s bulletin!  Although we still have a few steps to go through with the City of Westminster, I am 90% sure that we will have our bells.  The final step is a City Council meeting at the beginning of June, with their approval we will be able to build our bell tower!  Please keep this in your prayers.

Our last Masses in the church are next weekend! For the weekend of June 6-7, Masses will be in the Fr. Puhl Center .  These are exciting times for us!

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Tonight’s Quote from Father Hilton

During tonight’s Committee Meeting, Father Hilton made this statement:

“The City of Westminster has been wonderful to work with.”

Adam agreed!

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From Westminster: Meeting Held

An update from Community Development at the City of Westminster:

Meeting held for Holy Trinity

(Apr 17, 2009)

On Tuesday, April 14, a neighborhood meeting was held at Holy Trinity Catholic Church.

The church is proposing to rezone from R-1 (single-family residential) to PUD (planned unit development).

The rezoning would bring the church into compliance with setbacks and heights that exist on the site, as well as increase the existing allowable height from 25 feet to 35 feet (and 45 feet for bell towers, spires and crosses).

The church is currently working on plans for a bell tower at the northwest corner of the sanctuary, which will be processed as an amended official development plan.

There were no neighbors in attendance at the meeting.

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Why Did We Lose our Bell Tower?

Yellow areas are zoned R-Residential.

In today’s bulletin, Father Hilton writes:

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 the buildings built upon residential property is limited to a maximum of 25 feet. The City granted a height exemption when we build the Fr. Puhl Center and we were given no reason to expect that there would be any difficulty with out 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 designs 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 expenses. Our most recent architectural plans have deleted the bell tower and, be assured, the church still looks very beautiful.

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