Former Southern Baptist Conference President J.D. Greear’s multi-campus The Summit Church in North Carolina has filed a lawsuit towards the Chatham County Board of Commissioners alleging non secular discrimination after it rejected the church’s request to rezone almost 100 acres of land to accommodate its Chapel Hill campus.
The 743-page lawsuit filed on Feb. 14 within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Japanese District of North Carolina and reviewed by The Christian Submit, seeks to implement the church’s “civil rights as enshrined within the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the USA Structure and codified within the Spiritual Land Use and Institutionalized Individuals Act.”
Greear’s imaginative and prescient for North Carolina’s Triangle area to make sure folks stay “not more than fifteen minutes from a thriving evangelical church” is highlighted. Summit Church at present has 13 campuses assembly in 12 places, with every internet hosting between two and 4 companies every week, based on the courtroom submitting.
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“Summit’s multi-site technique is a key a part of its non secular observe. Summit’s aim is to make sure that everybody within the Triangle area lives not more than fifteen minutes from a thriving evangelical church campus the place the gospel is preached,” the lawsuit states. “Pastor Greear has described succinctly the significance of native church buildings to evangelism: ‘You would possibly drive 45 minutes to a church you like, however that particular person you simply met at Starbucks who doesn’t know Jesus gained’t be as dedicated.’”
The church defined in its lawsuit that since launching the Chapel Hill campus in 2013, they’ve been assembly weekly at East Chapel Hill Excessive College, however the web site is not enough for his or her wants. Roughly 800 folks attend companies at East Chapel Hill Excessive College and a few 15% of these churchgoers journey from Chatham County.
Based on the lawsuit, final yr, Summit Church acquired by way of an settlement the choice to buy six parcels of land totaling 97 acres in Chatham County. The land was initially earmarked in 2019 to be developed into an active-adult (55+) group referred to as “Herndon Farms” however the approval for that group expired as a result of the event plans weren’t submitted by the deadline established by the ordinance.
In early December 2023, Summit Church acquired an curiosity within the six undeveloped parcels by way of an settlement with the property proprietor which grants them the choice to buy the parcels by July 1.
Earlier than the church entered that settlement, their planning and design consultant, Qunity, PA, organized a pre-submittal assembly with overview workers representing every stage of Chatham County’s rezoning course of in October 2023. County workers discovered the church’s plan to develop the land to be in line with the county’s complete land use plan referred to as Plan Chatham in addition to its Future Use Map.
As part of its rezoning utility to the County’s Planning Division, Summit Church was additionally required by ordinance to satisfy with the Chatham County Look Fee and maintain a Group Assembly. The church met with the Chatham County Look Fee on April 24, 2024, and held the group assembly on April 29, 2024, the place attendees “have been excited to see a undertaking proposed that can profit the group and restrict environmental impacts [and] density.”
A couple of month later, the church submitted its rezoning utility that seeks to rezone three of the parcels or roughly 50 acres of land on the japanese facet of the freeway to Conditional District-Workplace & Institutional. The church additionally submitted a separate utility to revive the remaining three parcels to their pre-2022 zoning, R-1, as a result of the Church “has no plans to develop them presently” explains the lawsuit.
Regardless of the preliminary help for the church’s rezoning utility at a public listening to on Aug. 19, 2024, then-Vice Chair Karen Howard of the Board of Commissioners referred to as Summit Church “a poor match for what we’re envisioning” and “antithetical to actual rural character preservation.”
“Vice Chair Howard additionally took situation with outsiders—’overflow from elsewhere’—worshipping in Chatham County. When Summit Church’s consultant famous that the ‘most use’ contemplated within the examine was primarily based on weekly Sunday companies, Vice Chair Howard wrongly concluded that this meant that attendees ‘aren’t Chatham County residents . . . as a result of people who find themselves . . . looking for group in a church aren’t simply occurring Sunday,’” the lawsuit states.
Commissioners additionally raised concern in regards to the lack of tax income if the church ought to change into the brand new homeowners of the land.
“Previous to the August 19 listening to, no elected official or member of the planning workers had publicly expressed any concern concerning Summit’s rezoning request or its consistency with Plan Chatham. Certainly, the final consensus was that Summit’s proposal completed Plan Chatham’s targets as properly or higher than the Herndon Farms plan,” the lawsuit argues.
At a planning board assembly in September 2024, Chatham County residents repeatedly raised concern in regards to the presence of a megachurch of their neighborhood that “can be extra becoming in [an] city atmosphere [,] not a rural county the place we worth open areas.”
“Different commenters recommended that Chatham County residents must attend ‘any of the opposite Baptist church buildings which are already right here.’ As one resident said: ‘We now have the church buildings which are right here, discover a kind of little church buildings and have enjoyable with that,’” the lawsuit notes.
Whereas it was famous by Planning Board member Tony Mayer that there weren’t any clear causes to object to the church’s rezoning utility, the lawsuit alleges that the board’s Vice Chair Mary Roodkowsky argued that Summit Church “will not be like the opposite church buildings we have now within the County” and it was “higher suited in a extra city atmosphere. It’s not a rural church once you image a rural church.”
The Planning Board didn’t vote on a advice for the church’s utility at that assembly in September however selected to proceed the matter in October 2024.
Summit Church states within the go well with that it sought to handle considerations raised by members of the county’s Planning Board which acquired public feedback, a few of which branded the church as “a big, large enterprise masquerading as a home of worship.”
“One other commenter added that ‘praising Jesus doesn’t truly require the event of a 50 acre, 88,000 sq ft, 3000 parishioner megachurch.’ One even recommended that constructing the church was a sinful act that will ‘go towards the teachings of Jesus to like your neighbor as your self,’” the go well with provides.
Different commenters against the church claimed that Summit Church would not match Chatham County’s “progressive, LGBTQ-friendly, and openminded environment.”
“The general public feedback proceed at size, in writing and in particular person on the Planning Board’s public hearings. They discuss with Summit Church as a ‘monstrosity.’ They accuse Summit Church of trying to ‘colonize’ Chatham County. They assert that ‘Megachurches’ like Summit create a ‘segregation impact’ that ‘contradicts the historic function of church buildings as establishments that deliver collectively numerous teams of individuals on equal footing,’” the lawsuit states whereas pointing to Summit Church and Greear’s well-documented dedication to ethnic unity.
The County Commissioners finally voted unanimously to reject Summit Church’s rezoning utility regardless of the church’s “request being in line with Plan Chatham and the Future Use Map, and regardless of the Look Fee’s recognition of Summit Church’s extraordinary efforts to guard the agricultural character of the realm,” the lawsuit states.
The official purpose given for denying the church’s utility, based on the lawsuit, is that it “was ‘not in line with’ Plan Chatham and was not ‘cheap and within the public curiosity’ as a result of it didn’t ‘provid[e] a variety within the tax income and doesn’t present extra high-quality jobs for the realm.’”
Summit Church’s lawsuit asks the courtroom to “grant preliminary and everlasting injunctive aid requiring the County to approve Summit Church’s rezoning request and related web site plan; enter a Declaratory Judgment that the County’s denial of Summit Church’s rezoning functions violates RLUIPA, and is due to this fact void; award Summit Church its prices and bills, together with cheap legal professional’s charges; all of the damages to which Summit Church is entitled; and any such additional aid because it deems acceptable.”
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