(CN) — What they wanted was a quiet waterfront retreat where they could practice meditation and other tenets of Buddhism. Since 2010, the Nimityongskul family has operated the Thai Meditation Center of Alabama out of a small commercial space in a Mobile strip mall along one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. There, weekly meditation classes and other events are frequently interrupted by traffic noises and other distractions, while the location isn’t ideal for hosting visiting monks, artists and other instructors. In 2015, the center found what it was looking for and purchased a tranquil 7-acre residential property on Dog River featuring a 4,800 square-foot home and 900 square-foot guest cottage. A heavily landscaped lot with roughly 700 feet of shoreline, it is one of the largest privately owned single-family waterfront lots in coastal Alabama. Then came what they thought was a routine planning commission application. On the property, the center also wanted to construct a parking lot, a 2,400-square-foot meditation center, a 2,000- square-foot cottage for visiting monks, and a 600-square-foot restroom facility. After a pair of public hearings in which neighbors expressed their own concerns about traffic and noise, the center’s application was denied. Appealing the decision, Nimityongskul’s […]
