Agenda - Planning Commission - 01/07/1997

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O£ten breaking with the traditional religion of their parents in the 1960s and acquainted with a variety of New Age spiritual quests in the 1970s, these now-middle-aged adults often are turning to a variety of church settings of their own making, some fundamentalist and conservative, others with rather fluid theologies and worship styles. Many of these churches are nondenominational, a factor that usually increases their appeal. Their members tend to eschew old geographical links to neighborhood-based parishes in favor of shopping for churches much as they travel to malls and big box retail outlets. The churches make a committed use of all the newest technological and marketing devices in their efforts to provide a more modern worship experience. Far more than traditional congregations, these churches, as noted by Charles Trueheart in The Atlantic Monthly ("Welcome to the Next Church," August 1996), embrace the use of theatrical and multimedia techniques, entertaining approaches to worship, and modern musical styles that, in Trueheart's words, often resemble the top 40. The result of this appeal is what concerns some local planners. Traditional assumptions about impacts on surrounding land uses have become obsolete. Chicago Tribune reporter Steven Lee may have summed it up best with an October 6 article headlined, "Not all rejoice when a church opens next door." When a facility like Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, a northwest Chicago suburb, has 15,000 people attending Sunday services, parking needs far outstrip those envisioned in traditional Euclidean zoning laws. The decibel levels of thousands of people singing may intrude on the serenity of a quiet neighborhood. Outdoor lighting can become the focus of complaints. Other grievances can surface from time to time. Willow Creek sidestepped such issues by buying enough land in 1981 before other development arrived, says communications director Paul Braoudakls. Other churches are not always able to do this. The trend is national. From Trueheart's article alone, one can identify at least four regional centers where this development is occurring--the suburbs of Chicago and the Twin Cities, Southern California, and parts of Texas, including Dallas. A thorough survey would almost certainly identify others. Although historian R. Laurence Moore, the author of Selling God: American Religion in the Marke~olace of Cuhure (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), notes that megachurches originated in urban centers as long ago as the 1920s, Southern California helped pioneer the modern, more suburban trend with Dr. Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Not all megachurches pose land-use problems or even attract much notice. Many use nontraditional buildings for their services, and many also start as something a bit smaller. For instance, Trueheart mentions the Saddleback Valley Community Church near Mission Viejo, California, a relatively new planned community. Saddleback began by using a high school and has more recently moved to an industrial building in an unincorporated area of Orange County. Another congregation in the area is currently using a movie theater. Part of the Schuller legacy is that his congregation began in an outdoor movie theater. Defining megachurches is a matter of degree related to size, and churches evolve and grow (or shrink) over time, as is noted by Rev. Lyle E. Schaller, a veteran church scholar and former city planner who has published some two dozen books on the subject. For zoning officials, these changes pose many opportunities for discussion, negotiation, and compromise, and local ministerial associations are usually highly cooperative. Fostering goodwill within their communities is generally high on their list of values. Changing Times Nonetheless, notes Robert Kosin, director of administration for the Chicago suburb of Barrington Hills, even traditional churches have begun to encounter previously unanticipated opposition when planning expansion. In part, he says, that is because residents have begun to see the area's first megachurches as a "harbinger of things to come." South Barrington is an adjoining suburb, and residents of both communities have taken note of Willow Creek's impact on the area. In Trueheart's article, Pastor William Hybels describes Willow Creek as having attracted "two percent of market share" of the two million people within an hour's drive. Although a large institution, Mariners Church in Newport Beach, California, has raised no problems because it is on a relatively isolated site in an industrial area. More recently, Barrington Hills became the home of Life Changers International Church, a 22,000-square-foot facility sitting on 15 acres. Life Changers has tangled with the city in court, winning in September a stay of the city's denial of a certificate of occupancy while part of the building was being completed. Kosin says the new congregation's bigger impact was that it triggered a reassessment by the community of its traditional zoning of all kinds of institutional uses. Incorporated in 1957, Barrington Hills simply adopted Cook County's zoning then in effect, which permitted institutional uses in residential zones. The village never reexamined that practice until Life Changers applied for building permits. It subsequently changed its zoning to make institutional uses, including churches, special uses, so that in the future it could assess the impact of such facilities before establishing permit conditions for parking, road access, outdoor lighting, and other land-use issues. Throughout Chicago's suburbs, particularly in growing areas to the west and northwest where the trend is most visible, other communities are reassessing institutional zoning. The most common solution is the change from permitted to special uses,