The spire will be a bit shorter, but the Las Vegas City Council otherwise unanimously approved plans Wednesday night for the Lone Mountain Nevada Temple as prepared by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
More than 100 church members wore dark blue shirts in solidarity at Wednesday’s meeting, according to KTNV.com. Church member support was constant during four months of debate. More than 8,000 people submitted letters of support to the city council.
Some 2,600 people opposed the temple, chiefly because it will be located in a the more rural northwest part of Las Vegas near Lone Mountain. Some expressed concerns that it was too large, too tall, too bright and would bring too much traffic to an area where some neighbors said they like to ride horses.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said the sides were at loggerheads, but that the issues were about the project itself, not about religious beliefs.
“I don’t think it has anything in particular to do with a specific religion,” she said. “We embrace everybody, and whether it’s a mosque or a temple or a church. I mean, we can look throughout all of southern Nevada and know we appreciate that.
“Nobody’s opposed to anything with the religion or anything about it,” Goodman said in describing the opposition. “It’s just very large, very magnificent, but somewhere else” would be preferred.
She said opponents want to maintain the area for ranchettes.
However, the city’s staff and, unanimously, its planning commission each recommended the city council approve the temple as planned.
The church proposed a 216-foot steeple to fit the temple’s size and architecture, but when the FAA said it would need a blinking red light if it were above 200 feet, the church’s representatives agreed to a council member’s request to lower it to 196 feet.
The church did make some alterations. Initial plans called for 87,000 square feet. The final proposal was for 70,194 square feet.
The Lone Mountain temple will be built about 20 miles west of the Las Vegas Nevada Temple, which opened in 1989. The new temple will sit on 20 acres at the corner of Hickman Avenue and Grand Canyon Drive.
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced the Lone Mountain Temple in October 2022.
The council also approved a meetinghouse of 15,982 square feet on the temple site, as well as a 1,690-square-foot grounds building.
The proposal submitted to the city described the significance of steeples to the church.
“Steeples are an important part of the design,” it said. “Steeples have religious significance for the church and its membership, encouraging an upward focus toward heaven and fostering a connection between heaven and earth. The final steeple height has been determined by a careful study of proportions that balances the massing of the main floor, upper floors and the tower. The height allows the steeple to feel correctly sized when viewing the building in perspective.”
The planning commission approved the plan in May.
Jennifer Lazovich of the law firm Kaempfer Crowell represented the church during Wednesday’s meeting. She said the temple’s lighting would not encroach on other properties.
She said the temple’s exterior lights would remain on 24 hours a day but would consist of gentle lighting. She share a lighting exhibit, “which shows that the lighting of the temple at night does not bleed on to any other adjacent properties, nor does it even cast a light glow when you step too far away from our temple on our own site.”
A city council member who voted for the temple said she considered preparing a future “dark sky” ordinance that ensures lights on buildings like the temple could not remain on all the time, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Lazovich also responded to concerns about water use after a council member said she preferred trees to grass because trees use less water and reduce heat because they provide shade.
“Let me state for the record, very clearly, we are not proposing any grass on any part of the site, as we know that’s a significant water user,” Lazovich said.
She also said the temple site will have no water fountains or any other water feature and will include over 200 trees, more than required by city code.
Nevada is home to more than 182,000 Latter-day Saints in over 360 congregations.
The council’s votes on Wednesday approved an amendment to the city’s general plan to rezone the property from “desert rural density residential” to civic “public facility” and approve it for use for a house of worship.