Cornerstone granted 60-day extension to answer county questions
Church would like to build inside the Tierra Rejada Greenbelt
By Angela Randazzo Special to the Acorn

FILE PHOTO LOOKING FOR MORE ROOM- Cornerstone Community Church located at 2080 Winifred Road faces controversy in its hopes to build a seven-building campus inside the Tierra Rejeda Greenbelt.

The county planning department this week granted Cornerstone Community Church a 60day extension to complete its proposal to build a $40-million church campus.

The project, first proposed last year, has caught the attention of local governments because it calls for the seven-building campus to be constructed on 140 acres inside the Tierra Rejada Greenbelt just outside Simi Valley city limits, an area of land the three cities of Simi Valley, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks have agreed not to develop.

On July 20, 2007, the Ventura County planning department informed the church that its application submitted on June 14 was incomplete.

Seven months later, the planning department still hasn't received a reply from the church.

"At this point we don't have a complete application submitted," said Chris Stephens, director of the county's Resource Management Agency. "In some respects we don't have a project to review."

On February 20, the department sent another letter notifying the church its application was incomplete.

"We hadn't heard from them, so we sent the church a followup letter to ask if it's an ongoing project or should we close the case," Stephens said.

The church responded by requesting an extension to gather the necessary information.

The county's planning director granted a 60-day extension. The new deadline for submitting the revised proposal is April 28.

According to a church spokesperson, the county requested an extensive amount of information regarding the project, information that is still being gather by Rick Parkinson, Cornerstone's project manager.

Updates on the project will be posted on the church's website: www.cornerstonesimi.com

County and city officials, such as County Supervisor Linda Parks, have expressed concern over the size and scope of the project as well as its intrusion into the greenbelt area.

"I'm not seeing that the church is looking to downsize their proposal," said Parks, who is the chair of the Board of Supervisors and a leading backer of the SOAR (Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources) initiative.

The 140 acres are in the Tierra Rejada Valley near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

According to the original proposal, about 60 acres of the site would be developed, with the additional 80 acres left as open space.

"The 60-day extension for the church's proposal is standard procedure," Stephens said, "It has nothing to do with the whole SOAR issue."

Under SOAR, the county's zoning laws prohibit churches or libraries from being constructed in the greenbelt. The Reagan Library, in the same area as the proposed campus, was built before SOAR laws were established and is considered a government building.

SOAR requires voter approval for zoning changes involving open space or agricultural land in unincorporated areas. The church requested an exemption from this provision.

The church cited the Religious Land Use Act, which would allow them to bypass the voting process.

The act restricts government from imposing landuse regulations that "substantially burden" the religious exercise of churches.

Parks doesn't agree that the exception applies.

"In my mind it has to go to a vote of the people under SOAR," Parks said. "SOAR was designed to address this kind of intrusive development."

Called the "Tierra Rejada Building Project" on the church's website, the proposal includes a 300seat chapel, a 5,000seat amphitheater, a multipurpose hall with a 1,000-person capacity and a classroom building for Eternity Bible College.

The church also plans to relocate the Children's Hunger Fund, an outreach to children in need around the world, currently based in Pacoima.

Among the revisions the county has asked Cornerstone to address are a revision of the project's description and site plan; additional zoning and entitlement research; and parking, traffic and noise impact on the area.

According to planning officials, the project would require an additional 812 parking spaces in addition to the 1,700 the church proposed, for a total of 2,512.

"Having thousands of people come into the greenbelt is a real concern for protecting the buffer between our cities," Parks said.

The planning department will forward the revised proposal to the Board of Supervisors. The board will decide whether it must go to the voters for approval.