New church going in next door.

In My Humble Opinion
1

A friend bought his dream house a few years ago, 3200 square feet on 5 acres. All the houses in the area are on 5 acre or larger lots giving everyone lots of elbow room. The house is located on an arterial road in a somewhat rural area.

His dilemma is right next door. Shortly after moving in to the house, a sign went up next door announcing that that property was going to be the new home to a church, it just says (name of town) evangical church. The house on the property is similar to his and the owners, who he has met on just a couple of occasions, seemed nice. He figured the house would be torn down to build the church.

3 months ago, a new sign went up, it contained info about an evironmental impact statement and a propose land use change. My friend read the sign from the street but never obtained one of the flyers attached to the sign. Now he is saying that was a big mistake.

A few weeks ago some large earth moving equipment was brought in and construction of the church has begun. My friend noticed that construction was going on around the house and it did not appear the house was going anywhere. Also, a large pit was dug next to his property, less than 50 feet from his house. He went to the town building department to find out what was happening. A new church, big enought for 1200 folks, is going in but the house is staying too. The owners of the property obtained a variance that allows the property to be divided into 2 smaller parcels, one for the church and one for the house.

The pit near his house is going to be a storm water retention pond. Around it is going to be a parking lot that can hold 320 vehicles. The church itself will be about 7500 square feet and include a pre-school and private elementary school. The variance was granted because there were no objections and the land use folks feel there will be minimal impact on the neighborhood.

Besides the increase in traffic, especially on Sundays, my friends biggest fear is his propery value. The house he bought was valued at over $500,000 four years ago, he paid less than half that for it. He had hoped that the house would return to it’s original value in about 12 years or so when he plans on retiring from his employer.

He has scheduled an appointment with an attorney to discuss his options but right how he is really scared about what is going to happen to the value of his property. My 2 part question I have for all is, what is it like living next door to a church and what does a church do for propety values. Depending on what his is told by the attorney, he may decide to sell sooner rather than later. I would like to offer him some opinions, hopefully some in a positive light.

2

I can’t speak for the property values but churches make awesome neighbors. I lived next door to a church for a while and the members were constantly friendly and helpful. Any time I was moving furniture or boxes and there were people there they came over and helped me out without me ever having to ask. They were always kind and it was awesome having neighbors that are only there 6-8 hours a week. You could have way, way worse neighbors than a church.

3

Sounds like there’s going to be people, especially loud, shrieking children, there pretty much every day, all day.

4

Churches, in and of themselves, are usually not terrible neighbors from a property value impact point of view. The main negative impacts churches typically have is parking overflow spilling into the surrounding neighborhoods, but it sounds like that will not be an issue unless they outgrow the existing parking they are constructing.

The real issue is that they want to do a school and daycare, and that can beat down property values for higher end homes in some circumstances. The noise factor is the main negative along with privacy concerns.

Re the drainage swale if it’s not properly maintained it can become a mosquito breeding ground so he needs to make sure it’s properly engineered. He will also likely have a LOT of frog noise on summer nights.

5

Even if the public at-large may not desire to live in such a situation, I would guess that a subset of people (members of that church) would be thrilled to live so close. Another alternative would be to sell the house to the church in a few years. They could use it to house recipients of charity, or even rent it out to multiple low-income members. I had a friend in college who lived in his church’s house on campus for dirt-cheap, along with 2-3 other student roommates (depending on the year).

Or… has your friend investigated moving his home to the other side of his property? Putting a couple acres between him and the church could eliminate the problem. My mom’s house was moved (and turned) by the previous owners when a movie rental joint (Movie Gallery or something) was built adjacent to it. And it’s not a mobile or anything, it’s a big two-story with a full basement. They re-dug the basement and re-situated the house further from the business, and everyone was happy. That’s a worthy investment to consider.

Unfortunately, he didn’t raise objections when it would have done any good. They’re already digging, this stuff is already being bought and paid for. He only has control up to his property line.

6

I agree that was a mistake. He should have attended the hearing and found out what the plans were. If he had objections, he had an opportunity to voice them. (And as the next-door neighbor, his opinion would have mattered.) I think it is too late now.

7

And no doubt the plans were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’." :smiley:

8

We backed out of buying a house years ago - the owners had neglected to mention that it was going to be built before we made an offer. Sounds like this one is in a more rural area but, in our case, it was an expansion of a local megachurch. We didn’t want to deal with the traffic/noise/etc. Your friend has my sympathies.

FYI: he should familiarize himself with exactly what they’re zoned for. it’s not unknown for churches in this situation to later on request further expansion.

9

Something I just noticed. You say the building is 7,500 sq ft and they intend to put *1,200 *people in that facility? These numbers don’t make sense. I have a 7,200 sq ft multi use church building for sale, and there is no way you’re going to fit more than a few hundred people in that building.

For most non-urban churches the total building structural capacity assumption is about 20 sq ft per person which gives you about 375 people not 1,200.

Beyond this you make it sound like the school and the daycare are inside this 7,500 sq ft building, which would further reduce the assembly size and density capacity.

If the planned maximum capacity is actually 1,200 people (and the parking plans seem to indicate that as churches typically have a 2-3 person per car ratio) there is no way that building is going to be just 7,500 sq ft in size. A church would have to be close to 24,000 sq ft under roof to support that many people in the assembly area.

10

Do a little investigation about this church. They must exist now if they have this funding to begin construction. Check out where they are and their profile. Maybe stop by on a Sunday and observe how many congregants they have. The church’s hopes for wildly higher numbers and school attendance may not be “God’s wishes” for them. The project could be a bust.

On the other hand, if the church and school are wildly successful, I can see them seeking a variance for an additional floor and building out to three feet from the property line. Your friend came late to the party, but it’s not over yet. They may have difficulty getting past inspections. More variances could be sought before completion. Your friend can at least speak up at those meetings and effect delays. If he does that, don’t expect them to run over to his house when HE needs help.

11

How did they get a variance without sending a legal notice to the abutters (i.e. your friend)? In Massachusetts you have to get a letter in the mail. Putting up a sign with some flyers would not be legal. Maybe Washington is different though.

12

My poppa went to a “crazy” church for a short while in his life. It was located in the middle of suburbia. I felt sorry for the people who had to live around it as the church goers were rough and rowdy and smelt of Alabaman moonshine. I was only 8 or 9 at the time but thought for a while there Jesus was a grog-runner.

13

In the communities I’ve been in (MD VA DE) you have to post a notice and run a notice ad in the paper. Mail notification is not required.

14

Not in my experience. I live with one right behind me and they’re noisy, rude, and act like they can do whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want.

There used to be a bit of a buffer between us and them, then the old lady who lived in between died and they tore down her house, yard, garden (one she really enjoyed working in until she wasn’t able), everything down and put in a parking lot. While they were doing some of this work, they broke some sort of drainage pipe, and weren’t even going to fix it, they were just going to pour the dirt back in the hole and hope no one noticed. Fortunately my next door neighbor is a big of a “see what’s going on” kinda guy, and also knows a lot of people down at city hall, and he found out and as a result that pipe wound up having to be fixed.

But that’s just one extreme example, normally they’re just an all around nuisance.

Glad to hear that’s not the case for everyone living by a church. I guess there are always bad apples and good apples.

15

I share a property boundry with a church and wish I didn’t. Not that the church members aren’t nice; they are. The negatives come from the fact that when the church expanded, the board’s eyes were bigger than their budget. The result for the neighborhood weren’t beneficial.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that churches are basically run by volunteers who don’t necessarily have the time or expertise the creates great results in property plans, maintenance, and community building with their neighbors (beyond their members). Some churches are fantastic at this stuff, most churches try to be fantastic with this stuff but there are just not enough volunteers with time available or money in the coffers for it.

I would consider most churches average to decent neighbors. If you inform them when they or their property is causing a problem for you, you will likely be greeted with kindness and concern. You can’t always get that attitude from the house next door.

16

I used to share a property line with a church. It was usually okay but there was a several week period where it was torture. Their bell malfunctioned and would not stop ringing for hours on end. The church was made of solid concrete so they could barely hear it inside, but the back of my house was less than 100 ft away from it. One day after a solid hour of bell ringing I interrupted their service to demand they do something about it. It was not a pleasant experience.

Fortunately they fixed the bell before we put the house on the market and we carefully scheduled showings to not occur during church services.

17

I recently discovered that a megachurch is planning to build next to our rural lot. They are planning a building that will cover about 1.5 acres (almost 2,000 people in the main space) with parking for over 600 and a school.

The land is zoned Ag. Religious use is apparently allowed.

I wonder if the original poster or anyone else following this thread has advice on the best approach today. We will make sure to reach out to the church builders but this will be the largest building for miles around and is completely out of keeping with the neighborhood. We’re very concerned about noise and light pollution - and wonder if anyone knows of any laws that may pertain to this situation which would help us mitigate the impact.

We had no idea that Ag zoning included this kind of building.

18

Many non commercial zoning codes have inherent use or special exception allowances for churches, the issue is whether the zoning is inherent or requires a special exception. If inherent there is little you can do as long as they follow the rules. If it is allowed via a special exception it usually requires a zoning board hearing and you can make your concerns heard at that time.

Having leased multiple properties to churches over the years most Christian churches are good, quiet neighbors except for Sunday morning into the afternoon and Wednesday evening. If it is a relatively well off “mega church” your property might actually have some increase in value over baseline residential value if they wish to acquire it at some point.