By Sophia Gonzalez
Staff Writer
Published March 26, 2008

A five-year struggle that pitted an Orthodox church against a combination of unhappy neighbors and residents ended last week.

The Planning Board gave the St. Gabriel’s Syrian Orthodox Church permission last Wednesday to construct a 5,900-square-foot building on a residential street bordering a golf course.

Board members required that St. Gabriel’s alternate use of its church and multipurpose room to reduce occupancy.

St. Gabriel’s had purchased the 3.4-acre property for $1.1 million in 2002. The Hackensack-based church had outgrown its home and looked to divide its 450 parishioners between the two sites.

Construction plans by Rev. Aziz Hadodo for the new St. Gabriel’s included the building of a sanctuary, sacristy, kitchen, cultural center and 60 parking spots.

Opposition led by the White Beeches Golf and Country Club and local couple Joseph and Ruth Benvent, who hired lawyers in the process, provided a laundry list of complaints against a traffic overflow of parishioners, sufficiency of the parking lot and the height of a church dome.

Church lawyer David Watkins had alluded that the building plans were not the issue, so much as the arrival of the denomination.

Christos Diktas, lawyer for the golf and country club, said that his clients did not have an "issue with the church," but the zoning requirements with the cultural center.

Other residents feared that the construction would negatively affect the ratables of Haworth homes ranging in value from $500,000 to well over $1 million.

St. Gabriel’s will become the fourth church to be built in Haworth after half a century. The other churches in town are the Church of Sacred Heart, the First Congregational Church and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.