Nestled next to the mounting construction on Bandera Road(Hwy 16), amid several businesses along Leon Valley's main thoroughfare, sits a seemingly vacant dome-shaped building once known as the Church on the Rock, now called the Restoration Center.
Since 1996 the property has been home to various church congregations, but its most recent owners, the Elijah Group Inc., have found themselves pushing litigation with the city over the legality of worshiping there.
The city claims a church is no longer allowed on the property due to zoning regulations, but the owners contend the city has unconstitutionally stacked the zoning deck against churches in general, pushing them away from higher-priced land and toward the fringes of town.
In 2003 the city adopted a master plan that recommended religious assemblies receive Business 2 zoning, which could also allow for a multitude of retail businesses. The land at 6401 Bandera Road was zoned accordingly — but a 2007 change to the zoning rules restricted religious assemblies to property zoned Business 3, which also allows storage units and warehouses.
The previous owners had to obtain a special use permit that allowed them to continue worship services in the two buildings that sit on nearly 4 acres. Such a permit was not available to churches under the new ordinance, but the congregation's use of the property was grandfathered. When it left, the new owners could continue using the land for worship services until the permit expired, according to the city.
The Elijah Group bought the property last October after the Church on the Rock vacated the premises in July 2007. According to the Bexar Appraisal District, the Happy State Bank foreclosed on the property in September 2007. But Ryan Henry, the attorney defending the city against the Elijah lawsuit, said the official date of abandonment was Oct. 28, 2007, more than four months after the church was vacated.
“Under the city ordinances, the property is considered abandoned and any uses cease 120 day after the property is vacated,” Henry said. “Even if the use had been resumed in that time period, the SUP permit application wouldn't necessarily transfer over.”
The new owners tried to get the land rezoned back to B-2, but the zoning commission and the council rejected the request.
Henry said the Elijah Group purchased the facility intending to eventually open an elementary school and day-care facility. It obtained a temporary certificate of occupancy to operate a day-care center but never opened one and began conducting church services instead, he said. The document allowed the owners to connect utilities but not to actually occupy the buildings because the structures needed repairs.
City officials and staff said they could not comment on the pending litigation.
“The city's stance is that currently they cannot legally utilize the premises for church purposes,” Henry said. “And no final certificate of occupancy for any use has been approved.”
“The city is attempting to give them the opportunity to rectify as many issues as they can,” he added.
The owners say the issue goes beyond just one church and one piece of land.
“We're alleging that their zoning ordinances are discriminatory and unconstitutional against churches in Leon Valley,” said the attorney for the Elijah Group, Daniel Whitworth of San Antonio.
The city's motives are financial, the church has argued, describing in court documents comments by City Manager Lanny Lambert about the land being “prime real estate.” Before the Elijah Group purchased the property it was aware there might be legal problems, said Darryl Crain, the Restoration Center's pastor, who said he had several meetings in which Mayor Chris Riley and city staffers alluded to Leon Valley's financial concerns.
“So they told me they're in a situation where all the expansion is going toward (Loop) 1604 and Helotes area,” Crain said. “And they're left with the dilemma of, they're landlocked. ... This is from my meetings with them, they're landlocked. And like all small communities they have a dilemma: They can increase property taxes on businesses or they can increase (residential) property taxes and, of course, nobody wants that. So they're looking for more revenue in their businesses.”
“We did not want to get into litigation,” he continued. “And we want to work with the city. We're not mad at anybody. We understand their situation, that their taxes are like a lot of cities, especially now with the economy, businesses are hard pressed. We completely understand that. ... We want to work with the city to assist in every avenue, spiritual, financial, whatever we can do. The thing is that this is not an opinion, this is an absolute hard and fast law that has been violated here.”
Whitworth said Leon Valley is sending a clear message that more churches aren't wanted in the city.
“There have been cases all over the county, state and federal,” Whitworth said. “The law is pretty strong on the fact that you cannot exclude a church from an area for economic issues or tax issues or retail issues. So what the city has done is basically passed an unconstitutional zoning law that is going to apply to anybody that wants to purchase that church.”
“What they're doing,” he added, “is sending a clear message to churches that, ‘We don't want churches in Leon Valley,' because who wants to operate in an industrial area? Churches have historically, back to the Founding Fathers, been located in areas near residential where people travel and people shop and drive by. Who's going to want to drive to a kind of a rough area to worship?”
The Elijah Group sued on Oct. 31 in state district court but the lawsuit was moved to federal court. Leon Valley promptly filed for a temporary restraining order on Dec. 5 after the buildings failed a fire inspection. That order expired Dec. 19 and the owners remedied the fire code violations, which have allowed them to continue worship services but not operate a school or day care.
A trial is set for Sept. 21 and Crain is optimistic the church has a good chance of winning.
“We've made sure, before we even got involved in this,” he said, “that this was something that was not just winnable, that was overwhelmingly, favorably winnable.”