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Church case up to land-use board County judge passes on decision in Jacksonville building dispute By Melissa Martin Whether Jacksonville Presbyterian Church can build a new sanctuary will be up to the state land-use board, not the courts, Jackson County Judge Phil Arnold decided Monday. "The Land Use Board of Appeals should decide this case," Arnold said. The church�s attorneys in April asked the U.S. Circuit Court to decide whether the Jacksonville City Council broke its own laws when it denied the church�s request to build a new sanctuary on acreage zoned for houses. The City Council violated ordinance 2.36.120 when it reversed its earlier approval of the church�s conditional use permit, said Medford attorney John Hassen. Jacksonville law states that if a city council reverses a decision, the motion must be made in the same meeting and be initiated by a majority voter, not a minority voter, Hassen said. In the Presbyterian Church case, the Jacksonville City Council approved the church permit Jan. 10 and denied it March 2. The motion to deny was made by John Dodero, who earlier voted against the permit. First Presbyterian Church wants to build a 400-seat sanctuary and an education building on 10 acres it owns near Pheasant Meadows Subdivision and a pear orchard. The church has outgrown its 120-year-old downtown site. The City Council prompted a public outcry when it approved church plans but restricted hours of operation and banned weddings and funerals at the new building. The city didn�t violate its own laws, Jacksonville City Administrator Paul Wyntergreen concluded after listening to tapes of the meetings and reading transcripts. "It was a separate motion and a different set of circumstances,�� Wyntergreen said. "The motion that Dodero made was not tied to any particular (earlier) motion." The City Council and planning commissioners met three or four times to fine-tune the council�s approval of the permit, Wyntergreen said. When they couldn�t reach an agreement about the conditions of approval, the council reversed its decision, he said. "The final order had not been written or signed," Wyntergreen said. In his arguments before Judge Arnold, city attorney Kurt Knudsen said the Oregon Legislature created LUBA to hear land-use appeals. "Circuit Court certainly has the power to enforce a violation of a land-use decision, but LUBA has jurisdiction over appeals," Knudsen said. In his arguments before the bench, church attorney David Ingalls used the analogy of a city council voting without a quorum. "Without a quorum, any action they took would have no binding effect," Ingalls told the judge. Knowing city councils might violate their own laws, the Oregon Legislature provided the writ of review and writ of mandamus as a way of appealing local decisions to a higher authority, Ingalls said. In the Presbyterian Church case, "The city failed to follow its own procedure so there was no binding decision," Ingalls said. Oregon has no precedent for Circuit Court resolving land-use disputes over procedure, Arnold said. "If the law were clear, we wouldn�t have to spend so much time on this," Arnold said. "I�m convinced that LUBA has the authority and the jurisdiction to make this decision." Jacksonville Presbyterian Church appealed to LUBA in March; the case is expected to be argued in September or October, Hassen said. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA