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Jacksonville OKs new church Council reverses city planners' denial of Presbyterians' plans By MELISSA MARTIN JACKSONVILLE -- The room was filled with applause and tears of joy Monday after the City Council voted 6-1 to approve Jacksonville Presbyterian's proposal to build a new church in the Pheasant Meadow subdivision. The City Council's vote reversed a November decision by the Jacksonville Planning Commission to deny the church's conditional use permit application. "We had a lot of Christians praying in the Rogue Valley and even across the country and we are grateful for their support," the Rev. Larry Jung said after the council vote. Some neighbors in the subdivision had opposed the church's plans to build a 400-seat sanctuary on 10 acres it owns at the corner of Middle and Singler streets. Currently, the congregation meets in a historic landmark building near downtown, the same place the church has met for the past 120 years. The City Council's Monday vote also called for the council and the Planning Commission to sit down together over the next two months to work through a list of 13 conditions the city staff has suggested for the project. The conditions include building a walking path that connects to the city's system, adding covered bicycle parking, planting trees and limiting church activities. "If we approve this tonight without addressing some of these concerns, it will be a mistake not just for us but for the church because they have to live in that neighborhood," said Councilwoman Joyce Coleman. "There are loose ends in the language about how much they will continue to use the old building and what activities will take place at the new building." Bruce Woolf, the church building committee chairman, said the church has made it clear since it submitted its application last August that it is willing to work with the city to be a good neighbor in the 40-home subdivision. "The church is willing to say, `You design it and we will build it,' " Woolf said. "We knew from the beginning we couldn't design a building that would satisfy seven to 14 people (on the planning commission and city council)." He predicted a tougher issue would be any attempt by the city to restrict church activities. The motion to approve the church's application was made by council member Dean Paddison, who used an overhead projector to show how the church could modify its plans to relieve some of the neighbors' concerns about headlights shining in living room windows and the noise of car doors slamming. Councilman John Dodero, the lone no vote Monday, said Paddison's motion violated city land-use laws. "It's in direct opposition to where our city wants to go," Dodero said. "A lot of little things add up. Someone could say, `I want a building because these guys have a building.' When do we say, `No.'?" Dodero's motion early in the evening to uphold the Planning Commission's decision failed by a vote of 4-3. Both Bill Leep and Coleman reversed their votes in the second motion to approve the church's proposal. "There are many issues here and we don't want to adopt this with an open ticket," Leep said later in the meeting. "This would be built in a neighborhood that has been crafted over several years and thousands of dollars in legal fees. We don't want to deal with this in a reckless way." About 35 homes have been built so far in Pheasant Meadow, which was designed to have no sidewalks, curbs or gutters, and to have narrow streets, with garages built behind the homes. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA