Plans to build a 25,000-square-foot mosque on Nicolas Road at Calle Colibri were approved today.

The Temecula City Council denied an appeal filed by an anti-mosque group and gave the plan the go-ahead around 3:30 a.m.

They included a stipulation that the city would conduct a traffic study every five years and the mosque must never install external speakers.

The city’s five-member Planning Commission unanimously approved the mosque in December, saying the project not only met the city’s requirements, but went beyond them.

Days later, the head of an anti-mosque group, called Concerned American Citizens, filed an appeal. Usually, the Planning Commission’s decision is final, but the appeal required the City Council to review the project and cast the final vote.

The meeting started at 7 p.m. Tuesday and ran until around 3:30 a.m. Nearly 100 people signed up to address the council on the matter, according to the city clerk.

The majority of speakers supported the mosque, citing religious freedom and saying the opposition was driven by religious bigotry.

George Rombach, who filed the appeal on behalf of the anti-mosque group, gave a presentation on why he thought the council should deny the project.

The project will congest traffic, sit in a flood plain, and the city denied a similar church project on the same parcel of land in the past, Rombach told the council.

Rombach told the council religion had nothing to do with the appeal. “These issues should not be an issue this evening,” he said.

The city has no records of turning down any religious institution’s application in the area, planning director Pat Richardson said.

The debate

The Concerned American Citizens disagreed about the reason to oppose the mosque. Jacqueline Le Beau, one of the group’s leaders, started by talking about land-use issues, but wandered off into religion, quoting passages from the Quran she thinks show why Islam is dangerous.

Many other opponents of the mosque project told the council their concerns pertained only to traffic, but during other interviews, they said their problem is with Islam.

Karen Fazzini, who passed out fliers asking students to reject Islam outside Chaparral High School last week, told the council she opposed the mosque because of land-use issues.

Rombach also brought up only land-use issues at the meeting, despite calling the project a “victory mosque” during a small meeting earlier this month and saying the Muslim congregation wanted to build it next to a Baptist church to spite the Baptists.

Other mosque opponents eschewed the land-use criticisms and attacked the Muslim group.

Rabbi Nachum Shifren talked about how he thinks the congregation supports anti-Israeli governments, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. “This is exactly the issue. It has nothing to do with parking. It has nothing to do with the flood plains,” he said, working himself up until he was shouting. “This is exactly the issue.”

These arguments were moot because the council is forbidden from considering religion when approving a project, City Attorney Peter Thorson said. “That’s basic First Amendment law,” he said.

Support

The public comments period of the meeting kicked off with Don Krampe, a retired marine Sergeant, who wore colonial-period clothing. “We are all together on spaceship earth. We’re all one. We all have the same desires.”

He turned from the podium and walked down the aisle of the council chamber saying to the crowd that America’s official creed was freedom of religion. “We should protect our American creed and all it stands for,” he said.

Other supporters were Muslims who just want a place to practice their faith. “I’m asking for a simple right; to have a place to worship,” said Asif Balbale, a Murrieta resident.

The controversy over the mosque left some Muslims feeling alienated and fearful. “I really am in fear. I feel really weak. This is not the America I knew when I came here 15 years ago,” said Suhail Fares, who moved to America from Palestine. “I truly love this country more than I love Palestine.”

Rombach’s wife and co-head of the anti-mosque group, Suzanne St. John-Rombach, warned that the meeting was only the beginning of their fight.

“We will not go quietly into the night. We will fight until we gasp our last breath,” she told the council.