Taking the right path

A look at the Daily Pilot’s Forum page reveals that St. Andrew’s

Church is not simply preaching to the choir on its leaders’ latest

multimillion-dollar plan to build a new youth and family center and

create more parking.

A flurry of letters have reached this page since May, when

opinions on the church’s controversial renovation plans were first

aired in front of the Planning Commission.

And that’s the way it should be.

Neighbors in and around the Cliff Haven area have every right to

be concerned about the continued growth -- more than 35,000 square

feet of it -- on the 4-acre church campus at 600 St. Andrews Road.

But caution is also needed as public comments begin to flow in on

the project. The church is a neighbor in the community, and its

leaders deserve to lay plans on the table, which they think could

better the neighborhood. The church’s leaders want to open up their

new facility to children in the area, many who could benefit from a

youth center.

Let’s not blindly kill a project in the court of public opinion

before a full and civil airing of its pros and cons is debated on

these pages, in neighborhood meetings and City Hall.

City staff members still must finish responding to comments on the

development’s environmental study before commissioners can take

action on a zoning change that could allow the project. And after

that, the City Council must also weigh in.

That process will be followed by this paper, and residents should

also follow it to absorb enough knowledge to ensure they aren’t

against something they thought was something else.

That said, church leaders would do well to listen to the concerns

of a large and vocal group of neighbors legitimately concerned about

the scope of St. Andrew’s development.

If recent comments on the issue are any indicator of dialogue,

those on both sides of the debate need to do some more talking.

“The positions of the neighborhood and the church are very

distant,” said Don Krotee, president of the Newport Heights

Improvement Assn., in a recent Pilot story. “The neighborhood wants

to see zero growth, and the church wants to see more than 39,000

square feet, so we’re pretty far apart.”

St. Andrew’s Pastor John Huffman has said he wants to remain a

community church. Fine.

But for a church to be successful in a community -- in a

neighborhood -- it would behoove him and his associates to continue

to take the neighbors’ concerns into consideration, and even look for

ways to fuse them into renovation plans.

Even winning approval could come at a price, a costly future of

church-versus-neighborhood bad blood that would not be healthy for

the community.