Covenant Filed on Plans for Church Site

Hoping to allay voters’ fears that a church building project proposed on the Nov. 2 ballot will turn into residential housing, leaders of the First Assembly of God church have filed a covenant that will preempt housing from being constructed on the parcel, a church leader said Wednesday.

Pastor Tony Cervero hopes that the covenant will demonstrate to voters that church leaders will stick to their promise in Measure C that the proposed sports park and church will not become housing.

The covenant states that the land “may not be used for the development of housing unless, in an election held in the year 2000 or thereafter, the voters . . . approve further uses. . . . “

Measure C is the first test of the city’s Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources initiative approved by voters in 1995. The church development would include an auditorium, sports fields and classrooms on 25 acres at Montgomery Avenue and Bristol Road.

Church leaders are asking voters to change the zoning of the parcel from agricultural use to residential to make way for the new complex. There is no zoning designation specifically for churches and the proposed residential designation is the most restrictive for the site, they say.

Opponents say the language on the Nov. 2 ballot does not prevent the parcel from becoming a residential tract.

Cervero hopes that the covenant, which he said was filed with the Ventura County recorder Wednesday, will “give voters an air-tight assurance that that property may not be used for the development of housing.”

Cervero said it is too early to tell if the covenant has changed the minds of opponents or leery voters.

“It would be interesting to see if this would turn people around,” he said. “We would hope that it would.”

Cervero said church leaders thought that they had adequately demonstrated that the parcel would be used only as the church claims in Measure C, but recently decided to bolster its promise with a covenant.