Tom Fedor/The Gazette
The Faith Fellowship Community Church participates in worship services at Laurel High School's cafeteria, led by senior pastor the Rev. Darrell K. Terry (not pictured).
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Churches preach need for easier path to permanent homes in Laurel
New regulation will reduce burden on congregations moving into their own spaces, clergy say
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The Rev. Darrell Terry has been preaching to his flock from the stage in the Laurel High School cafeteria for more than 15 years.
“We’re in the building for about six hours a week, and we pay $3,000 a month,” Terry said of the 50-member Faith Fellowship Community Church congregation. “That’s $3,000 we can’t give back to the community.”
Terry wants to find a permanent home for the church, but restrictions on where houses of worship can locate within the city of Laurel are among the roadblocks for Faith Fellowship Community Church and other churches trying to find their own space.
The Laurel Clergy Association is pushing for a change in the city’s land development code that would allow churches to locate on certain residential and commercial properties by right, rather than going through the lengthy special exception process, as they must now.
The special exception is required largely because of the large amount of traffic caused by congregations and the parking required, said Jack Brock, deputy director of the Department of Community Planning and Business Services.
“It’s not that we wanted them to jump through extra hoops, it’s that we had to ensure compatibility with the surrounding area and public safety,” Brock said, adding that special exceptions requirements are not unusual for churches.
The new regulation would allow churches to locate in properties larger than one acre in most residential, commercial, and office park zones. Brock said the change will save churches that are moving into an existing building more than a month of hearings before the city’s planning commission and zoning boards.
Under the new regulations, which Council President Donna Crary said she expects to pass, churches will only be required to obtain a use and occupancy permit when moving into existing buildings, a process that takes less than a week. Churches that build new structures will be required to undergo the same planning process as other buildings.
The Rev. Kevin McGhee, pastor of Bethany Community Church in West Laurel and president of the Laurel Clergy Association, said that changing the city code will bring it into compliance with federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which prohibits local governments from putting undue burdens on churches through land use laws.
McGhee argues that requiring special exceptions is an unfair burden.
“No one argues that local governments should be able to expect churches to be good neighbors by providing for adequate parking and safe buildings,” McGhee said. “What [the legislation] achieves is allowing those interests to be met without requiring the churches to go through the onerous, and at times both expensive and slow process of acquiring a special exception.”
The Rev. Greg Strong had been growing his church in Laurel for three years, meeting at a hotel on Sundays, when he decided City of Zion Church needed its own home.
He signed a lease for a property on Laurel Park Drive, but said the church got caught up in a moratorium on special exceptions, keeping his church out of the building and paying rent on two spaces for more than a year. They’ve been in the space now for four years, and the congregation has grown to 300, Strong said.
“The community needs to change the attitude toward churches,” Strong said. “Churches help the community, they help the schools, they help the neighborhoods. They serve as an anchor for the community.”
McGhee and Strong both contend that the special exception rule has disproportionately affected Hispanic and African American churches because as Laurel’s demographics have changed, more churches serving minority communities are getting caught in the special exception process.
“[The law] is not targeted to those communities, but we need to be sensitive to the kind of groups it’s affecting,” Strong said.
Terry said Faith Fellowship Community church has spent thousands of dollars replacing sound and video equipment over the years because setting up and breaking down every week means more wear and tear. Some weeks the congregation can’t get into the building on time because they have to wait for someone to open the doors, or they get moved out of the cafeteria for other events.
“We just want our own space,” Terry said. “We’re committed to this community, and this change will help us stay.”
hnunn@gazette.net
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