LDS temple project takes a major step forward in Las Vegas
The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moving forward with its plan to build a temple in northwest Las Vegas.
The council’s action, including approving rezoning the land, paves the way for the church to get a building permit for the temple. In May, the Las Vegas Planning Commission recommended that the City Council pass the items.
Church members clad in blue clothing and others against aspects of the temple’s construction packed the council chambers for roughly three and a half hours, while the items were being considered.
The church plans to build the temple — the church’s second such structure in the Las Vegas Valley — on 20 acres at the southeast corner of Hickam Avenue and Grand Canyon Drive. The building is set to be around 70,000 square feet and feature a steeple reaching nearly 200 feet into the sky.
Bud Stoddard, the president of seven church congregations in the area around the planned construction site, said he felt grateful after the items passed.
“We’re grateful to the members of the entire City Council and all of their staff,” Stoddard said. “We know that this has been a big issue. It’s an issue that they’ve studied and taken seriously.”
People who live near the proposed site said during the meeting that they worried that the temple would harm the rural character of the neighborhood surrounding the temple by increasing automobile traffic.
Those who spoke out against the church’s project were concerned about threats to the neighborhood posed by the plans for lighting the temple.
The church originally proposed that the height of the temple’s steeple be 216 feet. Councilwoman Francis Allen-Palenske, who represents the ward where the 20 acres are located, asked the church if it would consider building a steeple that was 196 feet tall.
The church agreed to build the shorter steeple partly because a Federal Aviation Administration expert said at the meeting that the FAA probably would want a red light to be at the top of the steeple if it were more than 200 feet tall.
Also, the church wants the proposed temple to be illuminated with white lights 24 hours a day. Allen-Palenske said she would work on passing a “dark sky” ordinance in the area she represents to ensure that lights on structures such as the planned temple couldn’t be lit all the time.
One group that spoke against the church’s plans was the Northwest Rural Preservation Association, which states its mission to be: preserving the rural lifestyle on the northwest side of Las Vegas. Brigitte Solvie, the president of the organization, said the only good thing that came from the long discussion of the items was the proposed dark sky ordinance.
“The only real benefit here that came out of the loss to the neighborhood and the impacts that this will create is the dark sky ordinance potential,” Solvie said.
On May 14, hundreds of community members crowded into the same chambers to listen to the Planning Commission discuss the church’s plan for the temple.
The valley’s first church temple opened in 1989 at the base of Frenchman Mountain. That temple is more than 80,000 square feet.
According to a news release from when plans for the second valley temple were announced, Nevada was home to more than 180,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in more than 360 congregations.
Contact Peter Breen at pbreen@reviewjournal.com. Follow @breenreports on X.
