Californians erupt over plans for huge expansion of mosque: ‘Not happening here!’

A neighborhood has erupted at plans to massively expand a small mosque that will see its capacity increase five-fold.

Around 300 furious locals packed a city neighborhood meeting to reject the proposal for the Vacaville site, turning what was supposed to be a routine feedback session into a boisterous stand against the project.

“It’s not going to happen here!” one older man shouted to the throng of people gathered at the McBride Senior Center on March 18, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Other locals called for further studies, with one community member stating, “We do need to do a traffic impact study,” per KCRA 3.

“We need to do an environmental impact study on noise ordinance and how that’s going to effect the community and how does this fit in with what Vacaville has a master plan.”

The Vacaville Islamic Center wants to tear down a modest 1,200-square-foot converted house on Bush Street that has served the Northern California community since 1997 and replace it with a 6,600-square-foot, three-story mosque complex complete with a welcome lobby, courtyard, two prayer halls and 37 parking spaces, and topped with a 55-foot dome and a 65-foot minaret tower.

“The tower is over 60 feet tall. There is nothing compatible with 60 feet and higher in that same area,” another resident said during the meeting.

The $1.5 million expansion project is said to be self-funded and would increase prayer space fivefold to accommodate what mosque leaders call a growing Muslim population drawn to Solano County, which is more affordable than surrounding areas in Northern California.

But at the March meeting — organized by city officials to hear concerns about traffic, noise, zoning regulations and how the towering Islamic architecture would fit into historic downtown Vacaville — the message from the crowd was loud and unmistakable: Not here.

Hundreds of residents jammed the senior center, with public comment boiling over.

Anti-expansion activists circulated flyers comparing Islam to the Antichrist. One woman wielded pages of Google search results related to “Islamic terrorism.”

Another attendee turned toward women wearing hijabs in the front few rows and said, “If any of them were to take off their headscarf, their husbands would beat them to death,” drawing gasps from the women and applause from parts of the room.

At one point during the meeting, police reportedly had to step in to break up a physical scuffle.

City moderators tried to steer the discussion back to matters like the required environmental review and traffic study, rather than the flashpoint of religion.

“We’re trying to handle this project in a manner that is respectful of the community that’s proposing it as well as the community of Vacaville and it’s like we would do with any other church or other religious use,” said Erin Morris, Vacaville’s community and economic development director.

Mosque chairman Sayed Karimi responded to the debate: “We can be patient. All good things take time.”

The project’s architect Robert Sesar, who has designed religious buildings for decades, said its “so unfortunate” that the expansion plan has been met with negativity from locals, saying that “what’s going on in the world right now, with all this hate against different religious groups, has directly coincided with when this project is trying to take the next steps.”

Vacaville activist Hassan Sabbagh agreed that during the meeting, “The whole town seemed to be on edge,” adding, “You just got the feeling that something bad was going to happen.”

After the environmental assessment and traffic study is completed, the planning commission will hold another public meeting to vote on approving the project.

Specific figures for the number of Muslims in the small city are not available, but there are around 250,000 in the wider Bay Area.

Vacaville has a population of 103,000, while there are around 7.7 million people living in the Bay Area.

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