FULLERTON : Ban on Downtown Churches Retained

The City Council has voted to retain a zoning restriction that prohibits churches in the downtown business district.

The council’s 3-2 decision Tuesday came several months after the New Harvest Christian Fellowship sought to lease space in a downtown commercial building. The move was blocked when the church discovered that it was prohibited under a 1984 ordinance, which restricts new churches, adult businesses, junk dealers, rubbish collectors, fortunetellers and certain secondhand dealers from the 12-block district.

The ordinance originally was passed to make sure that downtown remained a commercial and service center, one of the goals of Fullerton’s efforts to revitalize the area. The area is bounded by the Santa Fe Railway tracks on the south, Malden Avenue on the west, Brea Creek Channel and Ellis Place on the north and Pomona Avenue on the east.

Several council members said churches sometimes do not blend in with the downtown mix of specialty shops and professional services.

“Churches will tend to inhibit new business coming in,” said Councilman A.B. (Buck) Catlin, who cited an established church’s opposition to a proposed downtown project. “When you have a conflict there, the church has an emotional appeal that is very difficult to overcome.”

City officials and business owners said zoning restrictions against churches are common and cited legal precedent that allows cities to impose them. Had the ban been lifted, city officials said, churches would have been required to get a conditional-use permit to move into the area.

“It (would) be very difficult to justify one church over another,” said Bob Linnell, a city planner.

Proponents of a revised ordinance said the downtown area is attractive to new congregations because of its public parking facilities and central location.

New churches “begin in very inexpensive storefront situations,” said Mayor Chris Norby, who voted to change the ordinance.

In May, the New Harvest church, along with the owners of the commercial building it had sought to occupy, asked the City Council to revise the ordinance by simply deleting the restriction on churches.

Since then, the owners of the building have found another tenant, an Alcoholics Anonymous group, said Raul Aldaco, pastor of New Harvest church. At the council meeting on Tuesday, Aldaco questioned why AA was allowed to lease space and his group was not.

The ordinance “puts us in a very difficult position of determining what is a church,” Norby said. He said AA was “in a sense a quasi-religious group” because its members refer to a “higher power.”

But Paul Dudley, Fullerton’s director of development services, said Alcoholics Anonymous groups fall into the category of “fraternal organizations,” which are not restricted from the downtown district.