Hindu faithful denied permission to build temple in Gotha
Leaders of a Hindu congregation hoping to build a new temple in Gotha will have to find a different location.
Orange County commissioners voted 5-2 on Tuesday to reject the congregation’s appeal of a zoning board ruling which concluded the proposed temple with a 43-foot-tall spire would be a “detrimental intrusion” in the west Orange rural settlement.
The spire would have been the tallest structure in Gotha and the 33,000-square-foot temple three times larger than any other building in the town, founded in 1885 by German immigrant H. A. Hempel and named for his birthplace.
The commission’s vote followed a hearing that lasted nearly three hours, including an hour of public comment.
A planned temple in Gotha stirs hopes of Hindu faithful, ire of Orange County neighbors
Congregants, who number about 3,500, said they have outgrown their temple on Oak Ridge Road in Orlando.
They asked commissioners to overrule the zoning board, insisting the impact on Gotha would be minimal.
Gotha residents said the temple would dwarf Nehrling Gardens, the botanical homestead of pioneering horticulturist Henry Nehrling, who developed one of Florida’s first tropical gardens where he tested more than 3,000 plants.
A noted ornithologist, he also catalogued the birds of North America.
The proposed temple site was about 300 yards away from Nehrling’s historic gardens.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said he received over 200 emails in opposition to the “Temple on Hempel,” a reference to the avenue in Gotha where the congregation hoped to build its worship center on eight acres.
