A New Church? Not in Their Backyard.
http://nytimes.com/2005/04/03/reales...&position=
By ROBERT JOHNSON
HULUOTA, Fla.
IT'S Sunday morning and Ginger Willis has stopped for gasoline at the MJM convenience store, where she reflects on the recent spate of building that she frets will ruin this rural hamlet's quiet ambiance.
No, there aren't any Wal-Mart stores, high-rise office buildings or factories headed for Ms. Willis's hometown of around 4,000, 25 miles northeast of Orlando. The focus of her not-in-my-backyard fears is new churches. To her, the spread of the spiritual is just another species of development sprawl.
"We already have too many churches here," said Ms. Willis, who has lived here for 30 years. "Now more are coming and they will bring traffic and noise."
The community's essence is evident at the MJM, which sells "gourmet corn bread," five flavors of Moon Pies and also displays a flyer that advertises: "For rent: 12 horse stalls. Five pastures on six acres."
A group of residents recently lost a battle to have Seminole County either prevent or restrict the building of two churches in Chuluota. The initial phase of one of those, the River Run Christian Church's 500-seat sanctuary, is under construction. The plans of the nondenominational church embody the concerns of growth-management activists, including a gym, athletic fields and preschool.
"The old concept of a church like the one on Walton's Mountain that people walk to once a week and then go home is a thing of the past," said Lonnie Groot, a land-use lawyer who represented Chuluota residents who hoped to hinder the new houses of worship. "Being a successful church today means being a growth-oriented, seven-day-a-week operation."
New churches in rural and suburban areas are prompting opposition from homeowners in increasing numbers. "There's a nationwide epidemic of churches being mistreated when they want to expand," said Erik Stanley, a lawyer with the nonprofit Liberty Counsel, based in Orlando. His group has fought proposed restrictions on 108 churches since 1999 in cities like Hilliard, Ohio, and Beaver Township, Pa. "We can usually resolve things successfully without litigating, but it takes a lot of negotiation," Mr. Stanley said. "A lot of people who live in quiet areas perceive a new church as a hassle."
New churches and the homeowners who contest them are attracted to the same neighborhoods for similar reasons. "People move to the suburbs and to small towns in search of some personal space at a reasonable price," said Ed McMahon, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington. "Churches are doing the same thing."
After fleeing city congestion, pollution and blight, both the churches and the homeowners are clamoring for their rights in yet another Promised Land. In most instances, the opposing homeowners got there first.
"People in small towns don't like change," Mr. McMahon said. "They get so used to fighting against commercial and industrial development that a new church is just another big building with a parking lot to them."
He sounds vaguely biblical when suggesting a solution: "But we have to love our neighbors. These issues could usually be solved if both sides would just sit down together, break bread and talk it out."
Maybe, but such discussions often involve political intervention, rancorous public hearings and threats of lawsuits. "I would say to any church planning an expansion in a small town, 'Pray a lot and prepare for opposition as part of the process,' " said Henriet Schapelhouman, an associate pastor at TimberLake Christian Fellowship near Redmond, Wash. Her church won a three-year struggle for permission to build an 800-seat sanctuary in a woodsy area in 2001.
TimberLake Christian had to overcome a King County Council moratorium on "large footprint" churches and schools. But doing so meant major compromise. "Our mandate is to be invisible," Ms. Schapelhouman said. "There is a buffer of trees between us and the nearest road. You can drive by and not even know we're here."
Another limitation accepted by her church was to have no "commercial kitchen." "In other words, our cooking facilities are small; we really can't make a church dinner very easily," she said. That reduces the number of events the congregation might otherwise hold on the property, she added.
But at least the church got built, and its leaders hope that its existence as a good neighbor will, in time, reduce homeowner opposition to additional facilities at TimberLake Christian, she said. "As a church we want to love our neighbors," she said. "Not in an over-the-top way; not sappy. Just living in peace with each other."
If TimberLake Christian had decided to intensify its fight, legal experts say, the congregation would have plenty of ammunition, including the First Amendment and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which prohibits regulations that impose a "substantial burden" on churches.
Yet officials of expanding churches are wary of achieving their rights at the cost of lingering community bitterness. "This kind of thing is emotionally difficult for both sides," said Bill Egner, executive pastor of Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth, Tex. "After it's over, you still have to live there."
After mediation by county government officials, his congregation won grudging support from nearby homeowners last year to build a new sanctuary with seating for 1,500, triple that of the current structure. But the church made a major concession, promising to wait 23 years before building other facilities on nearby land that it owns.
There will be no such wait for River Run Christian Church in Chuluota, scheduled for completion by the end of this year. "We are excited; it's a beautiful area," said Michael Andriano, the pastor.
And he vows the church won't disrupt the small town's calm. "There's isn't going to be noise," he said. "We're not going to be out in the parking lot with a band."
But not everyone is taking the "live and let live" approach.
A Jewish congregation has been battling for years to expand in a quiet neighborhood in Abington Township, a Philadelphia suburb. The 210-family Congregation Kol Ami wants to buy an 11-acre property, which previously held a Catholic convent, to build a facility that would include a Hebrew school. But some neighbors oppose the sale, fearing that the school and other activities will bring noise and traffic.
"This is an iconic case because the neighborhood is so quiet," said Marci Hamilton, a New York lawyer who represents Abington Township. "There are only 450 families and there's no congestion, nothing to bring people in from the outside."
The case is pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, where it is expected to be heard by early summer, Ms. Hamilton said. "Many churches today operate almost 24/7," she added. "It's not like 20 years ago - having a church in the neighborhood was like living near a park, but now it's like living next to a social agency."
Ms. Hamilton said that the solution for churches facing heavy opposition to their expansion or relocation plans was to "just get in your cars and go find another location."
But Derek Gaubatz, a Washington lawyer representing the Kol Ami congregation, wonders where churches or synagogues are supposed to go. "Congregations are being told they aren't wanted in residential areas because of the noise and traffic," he said. "But they aren't welcome in commercial areas because they don't generate tax revenue, or in rural areas because they might have an impact on the environment. That doesn't leave many locations."
James Schwab, a senior research associate at the American Planning Association, a trade group in Chicago, said, "The neighborhoods need to start recognizing where you draw the line in preserving what is built."
Chasing churches to other locations may just stir not-in-my-backyard attitudes elsewhere, he said. "Obviously the churches have to go someplace."
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