The Ventura County Board of Supervisors gave Cornerstone Community Church the green light March 24 to build new worship facilities in the Tierra Rejada Valley.

At the meeting, supervisors voted 3-2 to overturn the county planning commission's earlier decision and accept Cornerstone's application for a conditionaluse permit. Supervisors Peter Foy and Linda Parks, who represent the East County, dissented.

"Twice our county counsel confirmed at the meeting that if we did not allow the church to file an application . . . we would almost certainly lose in court," Supervisor Steve Bennett said. "Very rarely our county counsel says you will lose in court and it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's why I think that we had to accept the church's application, which is different than approving the church."

The board's ruling was contingent on the Simi Valley church's giving up its plan to relocate the headquarters of Children's Hunger Fund (CHF) to its 138.5-acre property off Tierra Rejada Road near the Reagan Library.

CHF is a faith-based Christian nonprofit that feeds and ministers to people living in the world's poorest countries. It is headquartered in Pacoima.

Foy said he dissented not because he is against the church, but because he believes CHF would be a good use for the property. Just as a church needs a building to carry out its ministry, CHF needs a warehouse, he said.

"If that's what they do to perform their services as a religious organization, we can't discriminate against that—federal law is very clear," he said. "They made a good argument and they proved they are a religious organization and our ordinance would be trumped by federal law."

In October, the planning commission denied Cornerstone's request to build a religious campus in the Tierra Rejada greenbelt, a stretch of county land surrounded by the cities of Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Simi Valley with special zoning restrictions.

At that time, the commission ruled that the proposal didn't fit within greenbelt open space requirements or the county's goal of preserving agricultural acreage. The commission also upheld a prior decision by the planning director that the project's proposed CHF facilities are not equivalent to an agricultural use.

Despite the majority's support for the religious campus, the board stood by the commission's decision to reject the CHF component.

Supervisor John Zaragoza said he does not think a warehouse should be allowed in open space and that it would be more appropriate in an industrial setting.

"Maybe the Children's Hunger Fund is something that is religious, but the use of a warehouse is what I was concerned about," he said. "Federal religious law does not say anything about approving a food warehouse in open space."

Dan Klemann, county senior planner, said the board followed staff recommendations when making its decision and that the supervisors made their comments only after casting their votes.

Located just north of the Reagan Library, the proposed project site sits on 138.5 acres zoned as open space—a designation that does not allow religious or industrial facilities.

Plans for the Cornerstone project, which were first submitted to the county in June 2007, include an outdoor sanctuary, an Eternity Bible College campus, athletic fields and the now-denied headquarters for CHF.

According to the proposal, about 40 percent of the site would be developed, with the rest remaining as open space.

Cornerstone argued that the project should be permitted based on the equal terms provision of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which was enacted to prevent religious institutions from being discriminated against by zoning ordinances.

While the county's noncoastal zoning ordinance prohibits churches, synagogues and other religious buildings in open space, the ordinance is preempted by RLUIPA's equal terms provision, Klemann said.

"The main reason they accepted the church was they felt that Cornerstone did present a convincing argument based on that federal law," he said.

Klemann added that Cornerstone was able to point to specific examples of secular uses that are already in the greenbelt, such as the Reagan Library, that are similar in scope and even larger in size than the church's proposal.

On the other hand, CHF was unable to show that its proposed facilities—which include 62,915 square feet of warehouses and 28,800 square feet of training and administrative space—fit within the open space zone. Initially, CHF argued that its proposed facilities qualified as an agricultural use, but the planning director and planning commission rejected this idea.

CHF then argued that its proposed facilities were subject to the same RLUIPA terms as the Cornerstone church because it is a religiouslymotivated nonprofit devoted to hunger relief. But county staff didn't buy that argument either, Klemann said.

"The problem with the Children's Hunger Fund is they couldn't find a good secular use . . . that is equally as adverse to the open space goals as what they were proposing," he said. "So we didn't feel they had as compelling of an argument."

Now, Cornerstone is left with two options. The church can abide by the board's decision and submit a revised application for the conditional use permit that does not include the CHF component.

The application would then go back to the planning commission and go through an environmental review, which had been put on hold until the board made its decision.

The second alternative would be to pursue legal avenues to fight the ruling.

"Their only option to pursue Children's Hunger Fund any further is they would have to sue us in federal court and convince a judge that we erred in making our decision," Klemann said.

Cornerstone has two years to file the lawsuit against the county.

Pastor Francis Chan declined to make a comment regarding the board's decision or what the church will do going forward.

For more information, visit Cornerstone's project website www.tierrarejadaproject.com.