Church Angered by Building Delay : Development: A moratorium is placed on new construction around the Stonewood Shopping Center. A Greek Orthodox church sees a bias issue.

The City Council has placed a 45-day moratorium on new construction around Stonewood Shopping Center, angering members of a group that wants to build a new church in the area.

Planning officials said the moratorium is needed so the city can fashion a plan to ensure that new area development will be compatible with the mall. The moratorium was unanimously approved Tuesday.

Downey officials view Stonewood, which is being expanded and enclosed, as key to revitalizing the city’s main commercial district along Firestone Boulevard. They want to attract more new stores, restaurants and possibly a multiscreen cinema near the mall.

Hughes/Lyon Downey, a Newport Beach-based developer that owns Stonewood, has proposed building another shopping center on about 11 acres of land it has yet to buy east of Lakewood Boulevard, across Firestone Boulevard from the Stonewood mall.

But officials of St. George Greek Orthodox Church hope to build a new church in the same area. Church officials, who hold a two-year option to buy a 2.5-acre parcel, said the city’s proposed development and the moratorium are discriminatory.

“One of the major purposes is to prevent the community from proceeding with this church development,” said Nicholas J. Kallins, a church attorney and member. The parish holds services in another Downey church.

Mayor Randall R. Barb denied that the city is trying to prevent construction of a Greek Orthodox church.

“We want to be careful that we do a good job in planning for the future,” Barb said. “This is a land-use issue. This is not an issue of the right to worship.”

The moratorium covers 37 acres directly to the south and west of the mall, an area that includes several vacant properties. City planners would like to develop a master plan for the area. Some recommendations for such a plan will be presented to the council in a public hearing at the end of the 45-day moratorium, City Planner Ron Yoshiki said. The council could then extend the moratorium.

In September, the church received a two-year option to buy the 2.5-acre property in the moratorium area for about $2 million, church president Gus Georgakopoulos said. The property includes a tire shop that fronts Firestone Boulevard, a private school, a vacant office building and about an acre of vacant land.

The church would be built on the vacant land, and the office building would be used as a community center. The church is paying about $4,000 a month in rent on the office building, which the congregation has been unable to occupy because it does not have a city permit.

The church applied for a conditional permit to use the building and to move forward with building the new church. But the application was rejected last week by the Downey Planning Commission, which decided that the site in the primarily commercial area was not suitable for a church, Yoshiki said. An appeal is pending.

Representatives of Hughes/Lyon have also been meeting with city officials on the proposed shopping center, Hughes/Lyon spokesman John C. Pentz said.

The area is in a city redevelopment zone, but the city does not have eminent domain powers to force property owners to sell holdings in the zone. The City Council approved the redevelopment zone in 1987, but the council heeded the protests of local residents and businessmen and did not give its Redevelopment Agency condemnation powers.

Hughes has contacted some but not all of the people who own property where the shopping center would be built, said Pentz, who added that he has spoken with church officials but has not begun structured negotiations.

“From what I’ve heard, they have an inflated (idea) of what they think the property’s worth,” Pentz said.

St. George officials said they would sell the property for the right price, about $3 million. That is $1 million more than the church will pay for the property if it exercises its option, Georgakopoulos said.