Hurting for Tax Revenue, Town Ponders a Freeze on Churches

Governing what Stafford can do is the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, intended to stop government from imposing land-use regulations that cause a "substantial burden" on religious exercise without a compelling state reason.

The nationwide battle between communities and churches has focused on zoning ordinances. Several South Florida communities have passed laws aimed at discouraging tax-exempt organizations from taking over commercially zoned property and edging out businesses.

To keep more churches from opening in strip malls, one Miami suburb passed an ordinance requiring houses of worship to establish freestanding buildings on at least three acres of land. Other suburbs passed laws restricting where storefront ministries can operate and the number of parking spaces they need and prohibiting religious institutions from major commercial corridors.

Monitoring such laws and taking communities to court over violations of the federal act is the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "A city that thinks it's going to solve its tax-base problem by excluding churches had better think twice," said Kevin J. Seamus Hasson, president of the group. "By taking a heavy-handed, clumsy approach, they might open themselves up to an expensive lawsuit."

Churches, Hasson said, generate their own economy by bringing people together who are likely to spend money wherever they assemble. "It's pretty shortsighted and dimwitted to think that a church is a net loss," he said.

As one of only three municipalities in Texas that have no city property tax, Stafford depends largely on sales tax revenue. Homeowners and businesses also pay taxes to support schools, the community college district, the hospital district and the water district. Churches do not. In addition, businesses pay a franchise tax -- and generate sales taxes.

Two years ago, when Stafford issued a building permit to its 45th church, city officials took up the issue of regulating religious institutions and large assembly halls. The new ordinance prohibited building such facilities in single-family residential areas but allowed them elsewhere in the city with a special-use permit that -- unlike before -- would require a review process and city council approval. Six churches later, city officials have asked the zoning commission and the city attorney to look at tightening the ordinance even more.

"At some point, it becomes a disproportionate thing," said Gene Bane, director of building permits, whose map of Stafford is filled with yellow stickers denoting every religious institution. "What if we had 51 bowling alleys? Fifty-one of anything is probably not a good thing."

The only religious facilities Stafford is missing are a Roman Catholic church, a synagogue, a Methodist church and a "hard-shell" Southern Baptist church, as Willis, the council member, described the church he grew up in. Willis has made it his business the past two years to ask the representatives of each new religious facility the big question: Why Stafford?

To a one, each said the congregation talked, visited and prayed about the decision. Their answer was, in essence, what Damián Tavarez, a member of the board of trustees of Iglesia Rios de Agua Viva, said in an interview: "We just feel that God directed us here."

"What argument," Willis said, "can I put up against that?"