TUSTIN : Council Says Center Can’t House Church

It seemed a perfect match: a commercial center with few tenants paired with a church with no home.

But when the Tustin Redevelopment Agency committed $250,000 to improvements for the Pacific CommerCenter on Red Hill Avenue in 1986, the money came with an agreement that specified acceptable uses. Housing churches was not one of them.

By a 3-2 vote, the City Council rejected the owner’s request to modify the agreement to allow the church to make the center its temporary home.

“I am sympathetic to the church and the concept of the church being in the city, but when we have a legal opinion given to us and when we have spent hundreds of thousands on the development, I cannot support this modification,” Mayor Richard B. Edgar said.

City Atty. James G. Rourke said in a written opinion that giving the developer money and then not requiring him to conform to the agreement’s obligations would “smack of a gift of public funds.”

“Clearly, the redevelopment plan does not provide for churches in the project area, and the basic purpose and intent of a redevelopment project is to generate tax increment revenue, which a church does not produce,” Rourke wrote, stating that substantial legal findings would be required under state law to modify the agreement.

Councilmen Jim Potts and Earl J. Prescott disagreed with the majority opinion.

“Under the (redevelopment agreement), an atomic-bomb manufacturer could be there, but not a church,” Prescott said. “It’s a matter of this council’s desire.”

James Biram of the center’s property manager, Newport Beach-based Resco, said he was frustrated by the council’s decision. Since the agreement was negotiated, the business climate has changed, he said. While lease rates were projected at $1.05 per square foot, the 62,000-square-foot center is now leasing for 79 cents a square foot, he said. Even at that price, the vacancy rate is about 45%, he said.

Randy Wolf, pastor of Harvest Fellowship International, was also disappointed. Unable to find a home in the city, his church now meets at Saddleback Inn in Santa Ana.