Encinitas may lift a decades-old, planning document requirement so that it will be easier for the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple to make renovations to its coastal properties.
The City Council voted last month to begin the process of amending the city’s general plan in order to remove the requirement, which was established before the city incorporated in 1986.
“This, in my opinion, is long overdue,” Mayor Bruce Ehlers said just before the council’s vote.
Under the current city regulations, if Self-Realization Fellowship wishes to make any significant changes to eight of its 14 coastal-area properties, then it must produce what’s known as a specific plan — a detailed, costly planning document that spells out what’s allowed in a given regional area and how any changes in that part of town might impact the city as a whole.
Arie Spangler, the attorney representing Self-Realization Fellowship on the issue, told the council that the planning document requirement originally was designed as a way to protect the temple’s scenic coastal properties during the city’s early days, but it now “creates an undue burden on them.” That’s something that’s not allowed under the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, she noted.
Just to “slightly expand” the temple’s kitchen building would trigger the planning document requirement, she said.
In an Oct. 10, 2024, letter attached to the new city report on the issue, Spangler wrote that Self-Realization Fellowship first came to “understand the extent to which the specific plan requirement obstructs its ability to improve its property” when it began debating modernizing its retreat and monastic kitchen area some eight years ago.
Self-Realization Fellowship wants to bring its kitchen into compliance with current health and safety codes, and is considering building a 1,093-square-foot addition to the existing 1,698-square-foot building, she wrote. Since that’s greater than a 10% increase in the building’s size, this proposed change would trigger the planning document requirement, Spangler wrote.
City associate planner Joel Cvetko told the council that the proposed removal of the planning document requirement would apply to eight Self-Realization Fellowship properties south of the city’s downtown — four that are west of Coast Highway 101, including the temple’s iconic Golden Lotus Tower and the meditation gardens; and four undeveloped properties east of the coastal highway where the temple has grown crops, including pumpkins that it carves for downtown Halloween festivities.
Both in her October 2024 letter and at last months meeting, Spangler said Self-Realization Fellowship does not have any plans right now to develop the undeveloped land.
In her letter, she wrote that “there are projects that may become critical over time,” including building a new temple. However, such a project would require an extensive city planning process, including obtaining a city major use permit, she noted in her letter.
The Encinitas Self-Realization Fellowship Temple facilities are part of an international organization founded by Paramahansa Yoga in 1920 to “disseminate the universal teachings of Kriya Yoga, a sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India,” Self-Realization Fellowship states on its website. Its Ashram Center and Meditation Gardens have become “a center of pilgrimage for thousands of people each year” who come to see where the founder lived and worked, the website continues.
