Goleta Planning Commission Denies Anthem Church Project

Anthem Chapel’s search for a permanent home suffered another setback on Monday night when Goleta’s Planning Commission voted 3-1 against the church’s project. Though the commissioners had asked staff to come back with findings of denial during a hearing in June, the church on Monday brought a traffic study for Sundays, which the city does not require but the planning commissioners had said would be helpful. But Anthem did not shrink the size of its buildings or move them farther from the trees where monarch butterflies were once seen, which set the stage for the August 10 denial.

All these issues were aired back on June 22, when residents of the surrounding neighborhood detailed to commissioners how they’d tried to negotiate noise and parking headaches with the church during the pandemic. The church had held services outdoors to observe health mandates but used amplifiers set too loud for the neighbors’ comfort and refused to turn them down. Congregants at the popular church also overflowed into the neighborhood with their cars, parking wherever they could, including in front of driveways, fire hydrants, and red zones, the neighbors said.

What the church envisions is a 20,000-square-foot sanctuary and education building on 2.5 acres near Lake Los Carneros Park. A permanent home at 6596 Covington Way — services are held at Goleta Valley Junior High currently — would let them increase in size and be able to have a childcare wing. But more vehicles coming and going from the church would affect Los Carneros Road, the commissioners had worried. So, Anthem Chapel did a traffic survey on a Sunday — going beyond the city’s requirement of only Monday-Friday traffic numbers. Its contractor, Scott Schell of Associated Transportation Engineers, measured the passing cars on a Tuesday and a Sunday to compare the effects of vehicles coming and going from its 117-space lot. (The city requires only 101 spaces.)

Los Carneros Road has a capacity of 14,300 trips per day, Schell explained. The traffic on a Tuesday was 4,410 trips, which would go up to 4,649 if the church’s childcare trips were added. On Sunday, current traffic was 2,500 trips; with the church holding services, it would be 2,924. Both are well below the road’s capacity. A study of the effect at Los Carneros’s intersections with Calle Real and Cathedral Oaks was similarly anticlimactic.

And Anthem Chapel was willing to do more, said Steve Welton, project planner for the church with Suzanne Elledge Planning and Permit Services. The church offered to monitor its Sunday parking and after one year allow the city to require additional parking and traffic measures. If necessary, it would rent space at another parking lot and bring people to church aboard shuttles. It would not use amplification outdoors. It would hold its special fall and Christmas events elsewhere. It would have a phone number and email for complaints, tell the congregation about parking rules, have parking monitors and signs, promote ride-sharing, coordinate with Stow Park on Sunday events, and allow 45 minutes between services.

The planning commissioners were unmoved, with the exception of Katie Maynard, who observed that the church had followed all the city’s guidelines. Her choice would be to change the zoning ordinance for future projects, she said.

For the other three commissioners, the size of the project was just wrong for the location Rita Serotkin, who retired as a dean of Guilford College in North Carolina, said her experience as an educator led her to question why the education building — 13,500 square feet and two stories — had to be so big if it was for 110-120 kids in Sunday school or daycare. Jennifer Fullerton, who was absent during the June meeting but said she’d reviewed it, pointed out that parking was insufficient, especially given the church’s desire to increase its members: “If parking starts out limited and you want to grow,” Fullerton said, “there’s no way to sustain that.” She was also troubled by the church’s inability to commit to keeping the roll-up doors closed and the noise inside.

After the hearing, Steve Welton said Anthem Chapel planned to appeal. The applicant had shown a willingness to compromise, and the Design Review Board had approved the project with unanimity, he said. 

“We are confident that the City Council will appreciate how this project meets or exceeds the documented standards for parking and traffic,” Welton said. 

He also noted how Anthem had supported overflow parking on its lot for Stow House over the years, and that the project included a much-in-demand day care and preschool.

Once the vote to deny the project was made, Commissioner Cary Penniman returned to the dais. He had been recused as he lives in the neighborhood. Penniman brought up the recent conflict of a gun shop moving next to a daycare center, suggesting that the Planning Commission encourage the City Council to consider a sensitive business location ordinance “to protect sensitive receptors such as schools.” All agreed. “Count me in,” said chair Anne Miller.