Two Doors Down They're Prayin' and Singin' and Feelin' the Gospel

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Back in February, a congregation bought the empty church building that is two doors down from my house. Honestly, I hadn't realized that the former congregation was no longer meeting there, but they had moved out in November or December.
Since February, the city has been giving them a lot of trouble about the building and its land and have not issued an occupancy permit. This is a small congregation with 45 current active members. They are about to be bankrupt from paying for this building and paying rent to there current meeting space.
The final issue appears to be parking. The church only had 45 parking spaces. Because the building seats 201, the city requires 50.25 parking spaces. Thus, the church need a variance for the 5.25 parking spaces.
Last night was the big Board of Adjustment meeting. This issue was the only item on the agenda. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until the residents were asked to speak. Then two people who live down the hill on adjacent streets start talking about how since the parking lot was first blacktopped 15 years ago they have had backyard flooding with any substantial amount of rain. The meeting completely shifts to this problem that the acting Director of Public Works had been aware of--for 15 years. 15 years!
I could feel the board members slipping away, they were going to turn down the variance over an issue that had nothing to do with the current parking! One board member attempted to steer it back, but this went on for 45 minutes. They had it in their minds that the neighborhood didn't want this to happen.
When they were going to vote, I finally said that I had come here to speak. I requested that the board grant the variance, and to do so for many reasons. One, this is small congregation where the parking would not currently be an issue. Secondly, we needed to let this congregation start to meet in the building so that they could grow financially, as well as in numbers, so that they could make any future improvements. Third, NOT granting them the variance was not going to solve the rain flow problem. The proper channels were for us to contact the sewer district (MSD) to address this. Otherwise, anyone else who would try to occupy this building would need to address the same issue. Not granting the parking variance is NOT going to get it fixed. Granting the variance would allow ALL property owners to work together on this problem. I told them only good could come from a church in the neighborhood and only 'not good' could come from an empty church building. This building was a church for over 40 years with this parking situation and was until late 2003 and I would like to see it be a church again in 2004.
After that, the people who were complaining about the drainage said they did not have an issue with the variance and wanted the church, they just didn't know who to address the water issue.
The board voted unanimously to pass the variance.
The neighbors and I decided to go to the next City Council meeting so that the city can address the water drainage issue with MSD. Hey, even I know standing water = mosquitoes = West Nile Virus.
You know...I really should run for office someday. I like helping my neighbors.
posted by suzyjax on 7/15/2004 12:34:00 PM > 0 comments

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