Church that beat city law loses worship space

Ellen McCarty

FOUNTAIN VALLEY -- The City Council changed an ordinance last month

to permit Shalom Alliance Fellowship to hold worship services in

commercial zones where there is adequate parking, but church officials

say they must continue their search for a new home because their landlord

has raised their rent.

“It caught us by surprise after all that we went through,” Pastor Mariano

Yeo said. “If we had more money, we would pay the rent, but we owe

$10,000 on credit cards. Before, we prayed to God for a new ordinance.

Now we will pray for more money.”

The landlord, Andy Weigel of the Realty Trust Group, has charged the

group $360 a month for the last two years, but starting Sept. 1 will

increase the rent to about $1,600, Yeo said.

Weigel, who said he owns offices nationwide, said the hike is nothing

personal and that he knew nothing of the federal lawsuit the church filed

against the city until a few weeks ago.

“I would love to keep Mariano [Yeo] as a tenant,” he said, “but I’ve been

trying to lease this property for several years and now the market has

really picked up.”

The two men met a few years ago and Yeo asked Weigel to donate his vacant

property to the fellowship, Yeo said.

“I told him as long as I had empty space, he could use it,” Weigel said.

In a letter to Yeo notifying him to vacate the premises, Weigel said the

city denied a permit to expand a tenant’s office at the center “citing

inadequate parking due to your weekend services.”

“While I don’t have a problem with your services,” Weigel wrote in the

letter, “it is imperative I meet the expansion needs of the other

tenants, and I can’t do that without the city’s cooperation.”

Yeo said he suspects city officials put pressure on Weigel to evict him.

But Planning Director Andy Perea disputes the letter’s claim.

“We haven’t denied anything,” he said. “We haven’t even received an

application yet. The only discussion we had was with a retail tenant who

inquired about a possible expansion.”

As a standard procedure, the city requested the square footage of the

proposed building and the available parking spaces from the tenant, Perea

said, but no decision has been made.