Property Updates
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Faith Community Church by the Sea
Property Updates |
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| Won't this church just be another Mega Church? | |
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In discussing whether our church will be a Mega church it is helpful to know what a
Mega church is. By definition a Mega church is 2000 or more attendees per Sunday or
service.1 Currently our attendance per Sunday averages 100 people, so we are not even
close to number of attendees. In addition, CDM (Church Discipleship Ministries, a branch of The Navigators) has carefully researched church growth patterns and concluded that the average percent of growth for American churches is 8% per year. They recognize that churches gain and lose attendees each year for a wide variety of reasons such as job transfers, death, and family transitions. The growth rate they cite takes such patterns into account. So, assuming that our church were able to somehow double that amount every year (16%) we would still only reach an attendance of 331 in 2018. Our plans call for a first phase auditorium seating 350. 1 "A megachurch is a church having around 2,000 or more attendants for a typical weekly service" (Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/megachurch) | |
| Wasn't your church planted by a Mega church in Escondido and doesn't that mean you will be just like it? | |
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Fourteen years ago, in 1996, Emmanuel Faith Community Church (EFCC) planted our church
on the coast to serve local coastal people who at that time were commuting to its services.
The intention was that people living along the coast, including Encinitas residents, would
have a place to come and worship and serve. There are several key differences between our church and EFCC. EFCC has almost 30 acres of land to work with, we have 7.73. EFCC can seat 2250 people at a single service hour, while our first phase sanctuary will seat only 350 at a time. The much smaller footprint of our property and sanctuary limits the size of our church to something much smaller than a Mega church. So, while we were planted by EFCC our plans do not dictate that we be just like them. In fact, a good case in point is one of EFCC's other church plants ,which is in Julian. It too is a small church of 130 people. | |
| How would you categorize the architecture? Isn't it just a big box? Isn't your sanctuary going to look like a Supercenter Wal-Mart? | |
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Not at all. According to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center2 a Wal-Mart is 185,000
square feet in size. In comparison, our first phase building will only be 11,349 square
feet. Even in our 20- year plan when we reach our final phase all of our buildings put
together will be only 85,820 square feet- a much smaller footprint than a Wal-Mart store.
Using Wal-mart as a comparison to our church plans can create an emotional knee-jerk response,
but its use generates more heat than light. We have also given much thought to how we can best blend our church with the neighborhood and we've decided that one step in that direction would be to dedicate one acre of the property on Urania Ave. for sale as three 1/3rd acre residential lots. As a result when our neighbors to the east look toward our church home what they will see will be three large-lot homes that will appear complimentary to their own homes. In addition, our plans call for our first phase building to be set back from Urania nearly 200 feet and from Normandy 75 feet with a substantial amount of trees and landscaping between it and the neighborhood. We think it will help as well that a large percentage of the property will be landscaped with drought tolerant and Mediterranean style plants. In the first phase, 73% of the property will be landscape and in the final phase, 45% of the property will be planted with trees, shrubs, ground cover and grass. This will provide much needed relief from the current weed and dirt appearance of the property as well as create a beautiful rural feel to the lot. Not only that, but we have purposely grouped four of the five buildings on the far West end of the property, contrary to conventional church construction practices. Normally, a church would place its sanctuary in the middle of the parking lot so as to reduce the distance a person must walk to get to the service. We have chosen to run counter to that wisdom for the sake of our neighbors. Having the buildings on the far West end will not only serve as a sound barrier to the I-5 highway noise, but it will also distance the visual impact on our neighbors. 2 "Now the nation's largest grocery retailer, Wal-Mart developed the one-stop family shopping Supercenter concept in 1988, which offered consumers groceries and general merchandise under one roof. Supercenters average 185,000 square feet and carry 142,000 different items" (Agricultural Marketing Resource Center- http://www.agmrc.org/markets__industries/food/grocery_industry.cfm) | |
| During your worship service, how much parking is expected to overflow onto our streets? | |
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None. Not only is the city requiring that all parking for this project be on-site, but we are
also planning that the on-site parking for each phase will provide more parking spaces that the
city requires. For instance, the city mandated parking for the first phase sanctuary is 160
spaces for 350 people. We are providing 166 spaces. The required parking for the final phase
sanctuary (which will replace the first) is 233 spaces and we are planning 247. We also
currently have a gravel parking lot on the property which could be used for overflow parking
in the first phase should the city be willing to let us use it as such. | |
| What will the traffic flow look like? | |
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According to the Traffic study conducted by Federhart and Associates on October 7th, 2009
(taken on a weekday, four days after Capri Elementary school day began classes) and
submitted to the city last year, 75% of the traffic (or 124 vehicles- 1st phase/ 175
vehicles- final phase) will access the church via I-5 North and South. They will exit
I-5 at either La Costa or Leucadia and proceed along Piraeus to Normandy Rd. The
remaining 25% of traffic (or 42 vehicles- 1st phase / 58 vehicles- final phase) will come
from the East and West on Leucadia taking either the Piraeus frontage road or feeder
routes through the neighborhood. Since our property is on the western edge of the
neighborhood facing I-5 and 75% of the estimated traffic will come off of I-5, the Traffic
engineer has concluded that the majority of traffic generated by our project will only
minimally affect the broader neighborhood. Even should the church eventually have 2 or
more services, the traffic impact will not reduce the level of service on the local
streets. In addition, both Caltrans3 and the city of Encinitas4 have confirmed that Piraeus will be opened in the future to both Northbound and Southbound traffic, making it a primary access road to our project, and more importantly, relieving our neighborhood of the pass-through traffic that has plagued it ever since Piraeus was closed by Caltrans to two-way traffic. In 2006 we were pleased to lend our influence and work alongside our neighbors and the Citizens for Rural Leucadia led by Kathleen Lees to help make this a reality through our petitions, phone calls, and presence at the Caltrans meeting. Also, it should be kept in mind that our primary traffic flow time is off-peak during the weekend. We will have some traffic flow during the week from staff, small group Bible Studies, our youth group and a daycare program (a maximum of 30 children in the first phase and 60 in the final stage) but that flow will generate much less ADT's (Average Daily Trips) during the week than 25 new homes would. The Federhart traffic study5 states that the LOS (Level of Service) for the Urania/Normandy intersection is an "A", the Piraeus/Normandy Intersection is a "B", and the Leucadia/Urania intersection is a "B" - not the "D" rating as was publicized in the recent picketing flyer. According to the city's website in the traffic engineering archives "'A' is identified as 'free' vehicular flow with little conflicts or interruptions while 'F' is identified as highly congested stop-and-go with many vehicular conflicts and interruption. The level of service for a particular road is a measure of speed and travel time, traffic interruptions or restrictions, freedom to maneuver, safety, driver comfort and convenience, and economy."6 The Federhardt study also states that "Table 7 shows that by using the worst case network, and the Buildout of the project on Sunday, the intersections will still have high levels of service and the project will have no intersection direct traffic impacts" (Emphasis by Federhart). In other words, our project will have minimal impact on the current LOS (Level of service). 3 Arturo Jacobo, Caltrans I-5 Widening Manager, Dec 11, 2009 4 Kipp Hefner, Associate Civil Engineer, Encinitas Engineering Department (Dokken Engineering Leucadia Interchange Map, Dec 4, 2009) 5 Federhart & Associates, A Traffic Impact Study for Faith Community Church Prepared for the City of Encinitas, October 7, 2009, p. 27 "Worst Case Sunday Intersection Delays and LOS's Under all Three Traffic Scenarios" (conducted during school hours 4 days after school began) 6 City of Encinitas Website, Traffic engineering Pol1923, item 17 | |
| Why is the church going to be open from 6am to 10pm? | |
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We have stated in our application with the city that our complete hours of operations will be
from 6am to 10pm. Obviously, this should in no way be construed to mean that we will be
operating at full capacity during those hours. Rather, we will have a variety of activities
and group sizes present on the property during those hours. For instance, our daycare will
open at 6am to accommodate parents who are dropping off their children, but our church staff
will not arrive until 9am. We will have Bible studies and care groups meeting for a few hours
at a time throughout the week (usually during the morning hours), but our youth group will not
meet until the evening after school and homework, wrapping up sometimes at 10pm. Of course,
these activities will also be scheduled to be inside our buildings or on our playground or
grass playing field. We will not hold outdoor concerts and have no plans to build any outdoor
amphitheatres. The two noise studies we have had done both state their greatest concern
regarding noise is the impact of the highway noise on our attendees. We are being required
to provide additional insulation in our construction to minimize that impact, thus making it
even more certain that interior sound levels will remain internal. | |
| Aren't you planning on building a school on your property? | |
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We have consistently stated that a K-12 school is not in our plans for the development of
our property. While we support the existence of good Christian schools, we simply
believe that the size of this parcel will not support such an endeavor in addition to
building a church home. So, our C.U.P. does not and will not include a school in it.
We do have some "classrooms" listed on our blueprints, but they are for Sunday use by our
future children's Sunday school classes, adult classes, and youth discipleship training.
Something else we have in our plans is to create a daycare program and possibly even a
pre-school for our community. But, we trust that the difference between a school and a
daycare/preschool is readily obvious. We are a church that seeks to meet the needs of
people and having a good quality, affordable daycare is a vital need of our community. | |
| We don't want the streets to be widened. Why are you planning to do that? | |
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The streets will continue to be two-lane roads, but right turn lanes will be added to reduce
the current backlog of traffic at the Southbound Urania/Normandy intersection and westbound
at the Normandy/Piraeus intersection (thus "widening" the road at those points to accommodate
those turn lanes) . FCC will give up an estimated fifteen feet of its property to
accommodate the turn lanes that will be created. The installation of the right-turn lanes
will allow our neighbors to have greater access to their streets due to the reduction of wait
times at the stop signs. This will be especially helpful when Capri Elementary school
traffic is present. | |
| Our neighborhood is a "dark-skies" community. Won't your lights disrupt that? | |
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We understand this concern and will cooperate fully with the city's guidelines for all our
lighting on the property. We will also make sure that, with the exception of security
lighting- all outside lights will be appropriately dimmed or off by 10pm. It is also helpful to realize that some level of lighting has always been a part of this neighborhood, from the street light at the corner of Urania and Normandy, to exterior house lights, to front yard lamp poles. Longtime residents in our neighborhood will recall that the former Sea Coast nursery (our current property) used to run lights in their nursery buildings during the night, making them appear- as one Normandy neighbor told me- like large "glowing nightlights". We certainly don't want to eliminate all lights in our neighborhood, but we do want to cooperate together to maintain an evening environment that benefits all. | |
| We think the neighborhood is already unsafe for walking. Won't your church make it even more so? | |
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Actually, we believe the neighborhood will be safer as a result of our church being here.
It has been demonstrated that crime is reduced in neighborhoods that have active churches.
For instance, when we first bought the property out of bankruptcy we found the acreage active
with gang tagging, transients, theft, and fire-hazards. At the city's and several
neighbor's requests, we established a presence on the property and began tearing down
the rundown nursery buildings and clearing out the web of ramshackle dwellings inside them.
In a very short period of time those problems disappeared and what we see now is the product
of much hard work on our part to improve the safety and appearance of our neighborhood.
You can expect us to continue working hard for the welfare of our neighbors. Also, we will
be providing a portion of our property to add Decomposed Granite sidewalks to our streets
(similar to those found at the Maravu development just north of FCC), so that neighbors
walking their dogs, taking an evening stroll, or sending their children off to Capri
Elementary can do so safely. | |
| Won't having your church in the neighborhood open the door to all sorts of future commercial developments? | |
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We need to understand that there is already commercial activity in our neighborhood
in the form of greenhouses such as Franco's Flowers on Saxony, Weidner's nursery on
Normandy, as well as the CA Acclimated Hawaiian Plants on Urania. We also have the
commercial activity from the Sunland Christian Science Nursing Center on Sparta,
which is so helpful to many of our community's families and their seniors. So, while
we like to think of our neighborhood as rural, it is not strictly so. The door to
commercial activity was opened long before our church bought the property at 680
Normandy. A key question to ask, however, might be how many Nursery lots are in
our neighborhood, and how many of those have been sold recently and for what uses?
The Fritz property was sold not long ago, however its planned use is residential
not commercial. Another Nursery operation on Urania is currently being marketed for
sale by Coldwell Banker, but again its promotional material offers it as a potential
residential development rather than commercial. While no one of us can foretell
the future, the trend in our neighborhood is clearly toward more residential
development rather than commercial. Also it is important to understand that a church
is not a commercial use. Commercial use connotes that of retail, shopping, cars,
etc. Our use is approved under the current zone with a Conditional Use Permit.
No commercial use can come into the neighborhood with a Conditional Use Permit, since
a commercial use would require a zone change which is far more difficult to get than
a Conditional Use Permit and needs to pass a much tougher test. Our church in no way
is a prelude to any commercial uses. | |
| What kind of tractor and truck activity will there be during construction? | |
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The city of Encinitas noise ordinance restricts construction activities to
the hours of 7:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Saturday. The ordinance also
requires that equipment noise not exceed 75 dBL over any eight hour period
at any residential property line. The property is currently estimated to be
dirt balanced and thus, barring any further requests from the City on right of
way issues, there will be none to minimal off-site earth movement. | |
| How bad will construction traffic be? Will it be using both Normandy and Urania? | |
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There will be construction traffic during each of the four phases of our development.
However, there will also be long periods during which there will be no construction
traffic. During each construction phase we will request that all construction traffic
exiting the property use the route of Piraeus to Normandy Rd to La Costa Blvd. | |
| What are the biggest potential noise impacts? How will they be mitigated? | |
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The loudest source of noise in our neighborhood comes from the traffic on Hwy 5.
According to the noise study done last year, the passing cars create a noise level
of 72.3 dBA. Due to this fact, the study has recommended that we provide a higher
level of insulation in all of our church buildings so that our attendees are not
affected by the high decibel levels of I-5. That also means that there will be no
noise disruption of the surrounding neighborhood from activities that occur within
our buildings. The study noted as well that the noise level coming from the neighborhood
was @ 57.3 dBA. In contrast the noise production of our church was estimated by the
study to be 50dBA. The conclusion was that noise coming from neighborhood sources would
be louder than noise coming from the church.7 The only mitigation the noise study
recommends is shutting down the church's HVAC equipment by 10pm or enclosing it with a
suitable wall sound barrier. 7 ISE report #09-022, Nov. 25, 2009, p. 21 "Expected Operational Noise Impacts"; "It should be further noted (in addition to the highway and neighborhood noise) that since the ambient community sound levels at the project sight are greater than this projected level (of the 50dBA operational noise impact), the audibility of these units is anticipated to be negligible (i.e. the average level would merge into the din of the background noise produced by the freeway traffic)." | |
| Won't there be a lot of noise coming from the courtyard and play area? | |
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No more than that already produced by the highway and community. | |
| What kind of a curfew will you have to prevent noise at night? | |
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We will set a 10pm curfew on outside activities. | |
| What will be your policy on renting your facilities? | |
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We will rent to organizations that have a similar purpose as ours or to organizations
that we believe can contribute to the well being of our local community. | |
| Some churches open up to all sorts of rehabilitation groups - drug addicts, alcoholics, ex convicts. Do you plan any of that? | |
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We anticipate that we will provide support groups such as "Grief Share",
divorce recovery, and other programs relevant to our community. | |
| What about activities in the parking lot or in the courtyard? Will you be having amplified entertainment, such as rock and roll bands? | |
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No, any concerts we have will be inside our buildings. Events in our west-end
courtyard will consist of low noise production activities such as baptisms (in our
outdoor rock formation pool/fountain) and families talking before and after church. | |
| What about fund-raising activities? Will you be having street fairs? | |
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We will not hold activities in our parking lot such as street fairs, concerts, or carnivals. | |
| What about signage? | |
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We will have the standard monument signs, one at each entrance and at Hwy 5. | |
| Will the gym be used for all sorts of organized sports endeavors? Will you have leagues playing there? How often? Traffic? | |
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The Gym will be first and foremost used for FCC activities and sports. We will
consider opening it up for neighborhood or community use on a case by case basis. | |
| My real estate broker told me that building a church in our neighborhood would lower my property values. How much will values decline? | |
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According to a recent study at the University of Nevada done by Dr. Thomas M. Carroll,
PhD- Prof of economics and Dr. Terrance M. Clauretie, PhD- Prof of Finance - churches
that provide amenities to a community (such as ours does) actually raise property
values rather than lower them.8 Their study, entitled Living next to Godliness:
Residential Property Values and Churches and reported in the Journal of Real Estate
Finance and Economics, 12: 319-330 (1996) took place over a 4-year span and looked at
4,858 home sales that were within 5000' of 32 churches in a 100 square mile region. 8 Conclusion: p. 327 "...If noise and traffic are major disruptions caused by churches, then we would expect that bigger churches would create correspondingly greater externalities. In Table 7, we add three terms to gauge the relation among 1). the property values, 2). the size of the church, and 2). distance from the church. ...If churches are nuisances, than larger churches ought to be greater nuisances than smaller churches. If churches are amenities, larger churches should enhance property values more than smaller churches do, unless diminishing returns are experienced. CLOT (acronym for Church Lot) measures the size of the nearest neighborhood church lot in square feet (see table 2). A positive coefficient on CLOT supports the hypothesis that churches are amenities... Table 7 shows that CLOT has a positive coefficient that is statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Being near the smallest church (lot size = 20,000) would increase property values by only 0.33%. Being near the largest church (368,517 Sq ft) would increase property values by 6.27%" P. 328 "We find that neighborhood churches are amenities that enhance property values over much larger distances (at least � mile)..." "In the rapidly growing Las Vegas Valley, it is common practice for developers to donate land to religious groups who build churches prior to the developer's construction of houses. It is doubtful that the developers believe the churches will reduce the prices which they can charge for residential property." | |
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| Initial Building Plan Features
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