MATHIEU BLACKSTON

Staff Writer

TEMECULA -- Christmas 1999 was an exciting one for Rancho Community Church. Membership was growing and the congregation had just bought 53 acres off Highway 79 South to build a new chapel and school.

But two years and thousands of dollars later, the land on the south side of Temecula is still vacant and the church has yet to get approval from the city to begin building.

Last month, the City Council set up a special subcommittee to address specific traffic and development concerns associated with the Rancho Community project, which includes a 1,500-seat congregation hall, classrooms, field houses, ballfields and will eventually have a gymnasium and a 43,700-square-foot church and administrative center.

"We've been involved with the city for over a year in the planning process and keep making significant changes in designs to address their comments," said Rancho Community Pastor Jay Beckley, "Each time we go through the process it means we spend $5,000 on new plans, and they're good for a 10-minute presentation, and by the time it's over the plans need to be changed again."

Senior planner Don Hazen said the city is not insensitive to the church's plight, but that religious institutions are inherently difficult projects to process because of the variety of uses, from schools and day-cares to congregation halls and offices, associated with them.

He said forming the council subcommittee is a way to help guide the church through what is often an arduous planning process, noting that a church is likely to have a much more difficult time paying for plan revisions and additional architectural reviews than would a professional developer.

City staff members have also said churches, especially the larger ones, can be some of the most contentious projects a city can deal with because of the negative responses they elicit from neighboring homeowners who typically don't want the additional church traffic or other impacts on residential life.

The Norman Rockwell-type depiction of churches tucked on a corner lot amid a community of houses is becoming a thing of the past, church and city officials say, as more religious institutions move into vacant shopping centers and industrial buildings to avoid conflicts with homeowners.

But even those less idyllic locations, like the office-zoned land Rancho Community wants to build on, can have problems, said Deputy City Manager Gary Thornhill.

For example, he said, placing a church in a commercial area can decrease economic vitality; placing a church in an industrial zone can create incompatible land uses where people could be gathering next to a warehouse that contains hazardous materials.

Special permits required

Temecula attorney Robert Tyler, who is representing a couple of churches looking to relocate, said churches are too often held to more subjective guidelines than other types of development, adding that municipalities sometimes unfairly prohibit church construction by requiring special permits known as conditional-use permits.

That process, he said, allows planning commissions and city councils to deny permits for churches by citing such things as incompatible land uses, traffic issues or concerns that the proposed location would be better suited for a shopping center.

Tyler is representing churches in Lake Elsinore and El Cajon, alleging that when those cities denied development plans for the churches they violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which is designed to protect religious assemblies and institutions from zoning laws that substantially interfere with religious free exercise.

In many cities, including Temecula, religious institutions are allowed to build in all districts ranging from residential zones to business parks, but only if they're granted conditional-use permits.

Tyler said the subjective review associated with conditional-use permits places churches at a disadvantage. He points to secular meeting halls as examples of how churches have a tougher time when it comes to building.

For example, Temecula's development code permits lodges, such as the Elks or Shriners, to build in some residential areas of the city as long as they meet certain objective criteria, but churches that meet those same criteria are forced to go through the conditional-use permitting process.

That, Tyler said, means a church, such as Rancho Community, may end up spending thousands of dollars on architectural plans to meet the city's development guidelines, only to be rejected for something that has little to do with the project itself.

"If lodges can be located as a matter of right in that zone, why can't a church be located in that zone?" Tyler asked. "That's where the discrimination lies. You see it time and again. Churches are not wanted in commercial zones because they don't generate tax revenue. They're not wanted in industrial zones because of various industrial hazards, and they're not wanted in residential zones because they generate too much traffic. So where can they go?"

Risky business for churches

According to Thornhill, from a city standpoint the best spots for churches are downtown areas because there's plenty of parking on Sunday: Most business are closed and the churchgoing people can help out the restaurants that are more likely to stay open on weekends.

Temecula has taken steps to make it easier for churches to build. The city has put together a development guide designed specifically for religious institutions, and Thornhill said staff is looking into allowing churches to build as a permitted right in the same areas that meeting halls are allowed.

He noted that churches, if they get the necessary conditional permit, have more flexible building regulations than secular meeting halls in that they're allowed to build in many parts of the city where secular meeting halls aren't allowed.

"This is not easy stuff," said Thornhill. "It never is and you've got to strike a balance."

Pastor Beckley with Rancho Community Church said the problem is often compounded by the fact that churches are often headed up by volunteers unfamiliar with the development process and its costs. Since churches don't get a financial return on their investment and new buildings are typically paid for with small weekly donations along with a handful of larger ones, it's disheartening, he said, to see money going toward numerous architectural designs when the church has no guarantee that it'll be able to build even if it meets all objective criteria.

"Every developer faces that (risk), but for us there's no payback," Beckley said, adding that unlike professional developers, churches can't easily bounce back from spending money on plans that don't come to fruition.

Churches can wait and see whether the city will allow them to move into an existing building before buying, but when it comes to vacant property, Beckley said, most churches can't afford to spend money on the entitlement process for land they don't own.

"Churches don't have the dynamics that allow them to buy property after gaining entitlements as land speculators can," Beckley said. "A church is pretty much forced to buy a property without knowing whether or not it can build. It really becomes an act of faith."

Contact staff writer Mathieu Blackston at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or mblackston@nctimes.com.

12/9/01