The Vietnamese Baptist Church in Plano, Texas is going to court to fight a zoning rule that prevents them from meeting in a building they bought that had once been a church, reports the Dallas Morning-News here.
The city’s Board of Adjustment actually voted against staff recommendation. Read the minutes here.
The 50 members of the Plano Vietnamese Baptist Church raised $415,000 in April to buy an abandoned church sitting on 1.2 acres in a diverse residential neighborhood of small frame homes and restored Victorian ones.
The city’s staff recommended waiving enforcement of a 1971 ordinance that requires churches in residential area to sit on at least 2 acres. That recommendation was rejected.
According to the Board’s minutes, the former church was in existence when the ordinance was adopted. When the church was sold and converted to a day-care center, its grandfathered status was lost.
At the Board hearing, six residents complained the church could create noise and traffic congestion. The Board of Adjustment then rejected a city staff recommendation and voted 4-1 to deny a zoning variance.
Are you kidding me? In a city of 222,000 people, there will always be six residents who complain about potential traffic and noise from anything!
And this building had once been a church.
Are you sure it’s the potential noise and traffic (geez, 50 members on 1.2 acres) that’s bothering you, and not that the church members are Vietnamese?
At the hearing, Board Member Kalchthaler appears to prefer that the site (now abandoned) become another day-care center and not back to a church.
The minutes quote her as saying, “Plano loves churches and you can go to any zoning district and have a church. A daycare can only be permitted in a multifamily type track.” Almost saying – we can only have so many places for daycare centers, so bring your church somewhere else!
“I believe we will win,” said Pastor Thomas Le to the Dallas Morning-News. Mr. Le has led the church since 2005. “I’m very anxious about this. I’m trying to keep myself calm,” he added.
Liberty Legal Institute (web site here), a Plano-based religion-rights litigation group, is representing the church.
“This is a significant hardship on the church,” said Hiram Sasser, litigation director for Liberty Legal. “They bought this property with their own cash, yet they’re not allowed to meet there.”
Assistant City Attorney Victoria Huynh said the board couldn’t approve an exemption unless the church had been denied rights granted to other nearby properties.
“The board can’t base its decision on emotion,” Ms. Huynh said.
Plano is a wealthy city 30 minutes north of Dallas. In fact, of all cities of its size and larger, Plano is the wealthiest in all of the United States.
Plano, by the way, also has the distinction of being in two different counties, Denton Dallas and Collin.
The Plano’s Board of Adjustment is making a biased, wrong decision.
Shame on the city and we need to flex our political muscle and financial support for this Baptist church.
The fact is, even churches have to play by the rules. There are laws, and this church has to follow the law too. I myself don’t mind having a church there, but until the law changes everybody’s supposed to respect it.
Thank you for not using the word “obscure” in conjunction with the 1971 ordinance, as the Morning News did. There’s nothing obscure about it. The Morning News’ choice of words merely reveals their bias in covering this story.
They voted against staff’s recommendation and this tells me that this church was well within the boundary of the rules and the regulations of the city.
Plano is actually in both Dallas (not Denton) and Collin counties.
Every nation has its own laws. Every state has its own laws. Every county has its own laws. Every City has its own laws and every house hold has its own laws. Having a church is a wonderful thing for a community. It will bring peace and harmony to the community. However, in order to bring out harmony and peace in society we must stay in compliance with the law. The city ordinance is againsting the church not because of the church itself but because of the zonning issue. On the other hand the church also has its right to appeal and bring out testimonies and support from its members and community. This is why we are living in a democracy society.
sonke, the rules and laws are written and interpreted by the people and this church’s zonning issue had a clear support by the competent staff’s review report.
My Bad! My Bad! Jung Kim. I thought the staff didn’t approve and support the zoning issue.
I thought it was going to be some boring old post, but it really compensated for my time. I will post a link to this page on my blog. I am sure my visitors will find that very useful.