After more than a year filled with an eviction, obtaining permits and doing renovations, members of the Quan Am Temple have a new spiritual home in Mason.

"It's a good feeling," said Thich Minh Quang, dharma master or monk for the temple. "It's wonderful to find a home."

Until the spring of 2004, the Vietnamese-Buddhist temple used the garage of a residential home located at 2514 W. Jolly Road as a temple. Now the temple resides in a renovated pole barn in Mason.

Minh Quang, who has been with the temple for two years, said the founders of the temple assumed the garage could be used for meditation services when it opened in 1999 in a residential area.

After receiving complaints from neighbors, the Lansing zoning administrator informed the temple that in order to continue religious activities they would need to obtain a Special Land Use permit, said Aloka Bagchi, an Okemos resident who helped with the issue.

Members of the temple could not obtain the necessary permit to remain at the residence, so they set out to find a new place.

"I was upset knowing this was a huge thing for these people," Bagchi said.

Minh Quang said the journey to obtain all the permits and find the new space, 1840 N. College Road in Mason, was frustrating.

"We don't hate the authority of Lansing," he said. "We are grateful to them because now we have a new temple, more beautiful than the other one."

The new temple includes a communal meditation room, a large meeting area, kitchen, two offices and adequate parking for members and visitors.

Many of the renovations were done by volunteers or members of the temple, and many materials used were donated, said Tam Khong, a retired General Motors worker.

"We didn't know how to do, so we just had to try," Khong said with a laugh about some of the minor renovations performed. "Everything we had to do, we had to twice."

Khong came from Ohio last year to help get the necessary permits and help with the construction of the current building. He said although the adjoining house was in good condition, the pole barn located in the rear required a new roof and removal of abandoned pipes, tools and shelves.

"It was just really terrible in here," Khong said. "Nobody believed we could make it nice. Any person can come to sit and relax, now it's a good place to come."

Members of the temple, which is owned by a non-profit organization called the American International Buddhist Association, received donations and took out loans to fund renovations and the down payment.

About 20-30 regularly practicing members attend services on Sundays while some attend daily chant and meditation at 6 a.m., which is offered in Vietnamese, Chinese and English. Minh Quang and a Buddhist nun live at the temple full time.

Future renovations are planned to make the outside of the temple, which still resembles a pole barn, more ornate and to have a Buddha statue in the front, Minh Quang said.

Forestry graduate student Yu-Wen Pan has only attended the temple when a meditation service in Chinese was offered, but said its presence is needed in the area.

"The new temple is very important for the Buddhist population in Lansing. They need a professional person, a monk, to provide them the route for their life," said Pan, who is also the president of the Buddhist Study Group.

On Sunday, 300 members and people who helped the temple open participated in a welcome ceremony.

"It was very emotional for a lot of us who have gone through the year," Bagchi said. "It's been a sad story that ended very happily."