Miami officials ease requirements on zoning for church properties

MIAMI (FBW)—Facing a lawsuit by two non-denominational churches, Miami's County Commissioners voted in December to change the acreage requirements for church properties. Several churches, most meeting in warehouses or storefronts, have had to close their doors because they did not meet the requirements for properties which are used as church buildings.

"It really took someone to challenge the law before it was changed," said David Vega, pastor of one of the storefront churches involved in the suit. "We congratulate the county commissioners for repealing the old law."

For more than 50 years, churches were required to have a minimum of 2.5 acres of land to acquire a certificate of use of property in Dade County. Although some congregations averted inspectors by removing the churches' names from the building exteriors, others chose to display their names and to await visits by county inspectors, who issued cease and desist orders to stop church meetings. The International Outreach Center—led by Vega—and Worldwide Agape Ministries, a home-based group of less than 10, opted to challenge the law.

The International Outreach Center has met since 1994 in five units of a storefront location on 134th Court. The congregation of 70 was cited in April 2006 to be in violation of the acreage requirement. Vega enlisted the aid of the Alliance Defense Fund, who filed a suit in federal court challenging the Miami Dade Zoning Code "due to its unequal treatment of churches from other public assembly uses."

Pastor Vega said "God told us to stand and see His glory" in the face of their citation. With a lawsuit pending, the Commissioners revised the law, and the lawsuit was dropped. Miami Mayor Carlos Alverez participated in a ceremony Dec. 14 at International Outreach Center during which he signed documents repealing the acreage requirement. He and the commissioners now "fully support the groups' rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLIUPA)," according to a press release from Alliance Defense Fund.

More than 100 pastors, including several members of Mission Miami of which Vega is director, attended the signing ceremony. The pastors had the ear of county officials who left the meeting with a list of other zoning issues that hinder church meetings, including parking and frontage requirements now part of zoning laws.

Vega said the group asked the lawmakers to examine laws that differ in their requirements of businesses and churches. For instance, he said, mandated frontage distance for businesses is 50 feet, but the law requires churches to have 150 feet. Since parking is limited for storefront churches, the store units' allotted parking spaces at present cannot be supplemented, even on Sundays, by "borrowing" spaces from surrounding businesses.

Vega said his church's five units are allotted 10 parking spaces for his entire congregation.

"It's another battle," Vega said regarding the parking spaces. "We won one and God will give us a second battle also."