The seemingly dead All Peoples Church project proposing to build a 54,476-square-foot sanctuary building and parking garage on a vacant, 6-acre lot in Del Cerro will get a second chance at life.
On March 11, San Diego City Council members will revisit their January 2024 decision to deny the controversial project, which the church refers to as the Light Project, as the parties seek a resolution to a federal lawsuit filed by the religious institution.
The public hearing notice was published Monday and states that council members will be requested to reconsider their decision, and then vote on whether to approve the project’s required general plan amendment, community plan amendment and site development permit, as well as its environmental impact report.
The hearing is scheduled a day before the city and the church are set to participate in an Early Neutral Evaluation Conference with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The court defines the off-the-record meeting as an informal settlement conference.
“We believe that the initial denial was illegal, so a lawsuit was filed. As part of the ongoing settlement discussions, the city has agreed to reconsider the Light Project,” All Peoples Church Pastor Robert Herber said in a statement. “We strongly believe this is the right project in the right location to serve our members and the community at large. We hope the council upon reflection and reconsideration will approve the project.”
Council members will, however, likely be pressed by neighborhood group Save Del Cerro to stick to their earlier decision, which they said was based on perceived defects with the project’s traffic analysis.
“The over 1,000 members of Save Del Cerro continue to support our City Council and its January 2024, 6 to 2 land-use decision to deny the legally flawed project,” the group said in a statement sent in an email by member Michael Livingston.
A spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office said the office could not comment on the pending litigation.
Started in 2008 by Herber, All Peoples Church is a non-denominational Christian church with a current congregation size of around 850 adults and children. It is operating out of a facility in La Mesa, purchased last year, that is said to be too small for the congregation.
In late 2017, the church purchased the irregularly shaped property at 5555 College Ave., near Interstate 8, and abutting single-family homes. All Peoples Church then went through the process of amending the Navajo Community Plan to allow church use on land zoned for residential use.
The project calls for a 54,476-square-foot church building, situated near the College Avenue off-ramp, with a 900-seat sanctuary, a multipurpose room with a basketball court, and second-floor classrooms and staff offices. The project includes a two-level, 71,010-square-foot parking garage with 203 spaces just north of the church building and 116 surface spots along College Avenue. Also planned is a new intersection with a traffic signal at the church’s primary entrance.
On Jan. 9, 2024, City Council members voted 6-2 to deny the project’s permits, against the recommendation of city staff.
At the time, the majority of council members followed the lead of Councilmember Raul Campillo, who represents Del Cerro and said the church’s application was legally flawed. Campillo argued that the project’s environmental impact report and associated traffic study grossly under counted weekday car trips associated with the planned basketball court, allowing the church to bypass a more thorough review of its potential traffic impacts.
The council member echoed the sentiments of the Save Del Cerro opposition group, whose members argued that the project’s car traffic poses a substantial safety hazard and that its size is out of scale for the neighborhood.
Council members were required by a federal law — the Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act or RLUIPA — to cast their vote based only on land-use matters. The law is designed to protect individuals and religious institutions from discrimination in zoning, and prohibits government entities from imposing a “substantial burden” on churches.
On March 25, 2024, All Peoples Church filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, asking the federal court to override the City Council’s decision. The suit alleges the city violated RLUIPA and the church’s First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly and the free exercise of religion.
The legal case, which has only been discussed by council members in closed session, could be headed toward a resolution, depending on the outcome of the upcoming public hearing.
The Early Neutral Evaluation Conference, scheduled for March 12, is meant to be a good-faith, detailed discussion of the merits of the case, according to the court’s rules.
“The purpose of the ENE is to have a meaningful settlement conference before sunken attorneys’ fees and costs present an impediment to resolving the dispute,” the federal court’s Civil Chambers Rules document states.
The conference has been postponed a couple of times. Originally, a settlement conference was scheduled for May 31, 2024. It was postponed in light of the City Council’s June 10, 2024, closed session meeting where council members were to consider a settlement proposal, court records show. Later, the off-the-record meeting was scheduled for Oct. 10. That meeting was also postponed, at the request of both parties, until March 12.
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