Schaumburg approves site for Japanese church

Schaumburg trustees Tuesday approved a special use permit for the local branch of a church that originated in Japan in the 1980s to move into an industrial park unit.

Happy Science USA came to New York in 1993 and received its legal nonprofit status in 1994, Head Minister Tomoshige Kimura said.

Happy Science itself started in Tokyo in 1986, a religion based on the teachings of Master Ryuho Okawa.

In the U.S., the church already has locations in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Georgia and California. About 40 church members living in the Schaumburg area have had to meet at each other's homes up to now, Kimura said.

Leasing a 2,400-square-foot unit in the industrial park building at 966 Estes Court is as far as the church's plans for the area go right now. There are no current plans to buy property or construct a separate building for the church, Kimura said.

Schaumburg Community Development Director Julie Fitzgerald said it's not unusual for a religious organization to locate in a multi-tenant commercial building. Other examples in Schaumburg include the Apostolic Church of Schaumburg on Wise Road and Schaumburg Community Church on Algonquin Road.

As with those, the off-peak weekend hours of Happy Science USA are expected to avoid conflict with the other uses in its building, which include a warehouse and automotive facility, Fitzgerald said.

Furthermore, the building is at the edge of the industrial park with a residential neighborhood just to the west, so the surrounding uses would never be too heavily industrial anyway, she added.

Religious institutions are not the only nonindustrial uses that seek space in multi-tenant industrial buildings, Fitzgerald said. Gymnastic groups and charitable organizations sometimes also use such spaces during off-peak times.