Highland Park Presbyterian Has Filed to Rezone
Just got the news myself.
For the unfamiliar, HPPC has been under fire from surrounding homeowners for proposing construction of a new parking lot on church property. This post contains a few reader responses, as well as links to HPPC’s information page and an opposing group’s blog.
Details to follow!
By Georgia Fisher
May. 25, 2010 | 4:25 pm | 46 Comments | Comments RSS
46 comments to "Highland Park Presbyterian Has Filed to Rezone"
it will cut down on the number cars parked around the rest of the area and make for safer streets due to fewer cars parking in head in spaces.
What do you think the result would be if the church congregation actually got a vote on this after a presentation from both sides?
Question for everyone?
If the proposed parking lot looks like the plans and “pretty pictures” and no cars can be seen from any of the streets than why do you oppose the plan? I am truly asking out of curiosity.
I am a church member that is for the parking lot. I have been at the church since 1973 and I live nearby. The plans are beautiful and I believe they are working very hard to make it appealing to the neighborhood.
I would love to hear your opinions for or against this lot – other than “preserve our neighborhood”.
Is this an issue really of 100′s of people or is it a couple pretty angry people who are trying to create something that really not everyone is concerned about. And don’t try to tell me that you have 100′s of signatures on a petition. I think if you stopped by my house and told me an angry story from your point of view about how mean spirited and ugly the church is being I’d probably sign it too.
The point is perspective. The haters keep finding new avenues to attack. The bottom line is you don’t want a parking lot. Don’t try new tactics every time it suits you and you think of a new way to try and get people on your side. Remember a year ago the church was going to do something quite different and they have clearly listened to the neighborhood and tried to conceal the parking lot as much as they possible can.
I’m sure that there will be quite a few rebuttals and even angry responses to this post. I can only say that I am sorry for coming across angry. The last house I bought I made very sure that I knew exactly who owned everything surrounding me and I asked difficult questions about what they might do with their property. Guess what, something got built there but I knew that was a possibility. Did you question your decision to buy a house in a neighborhood with a pretty big church, a fire station, city hall and a couple of parks that are used quite heavily by the YMCA and other sports leagues?
After you cool down, here are a few facts for you to consider: First, to date the number of people who have signed a petition against the parking lot exceeds 450 individuals. Second, no signs have been placed without the expressed permission of the owner of that property. Third, the tactics of the neighbors all reflect a consistent core message, they don’t want a parking lot.
Finally, your point about buying next to a “pretty big church” as being a questionable decision only hurts your argument. You are basically admitting that big churches are scary neighbors because they aggressively pursue their expansion goals at the peril of their neighbors.
Shuttle service has worked for many years at PCBC (which built a large-capacity underground garage and still needs additional parking!) and at HP Methodist (which does not have its own parking lot–SMU owns the parking spaces and HPUMC has an agreement to use them). It seems that HPPC could use this alternative very successfully.
Valet parking is another option. Since the parking lot was originally advertised as being for the church’s senior members, why not instead use a valet service to allow seniors and other challenged members to drive right to the door? This option has been used very successfully at First Presbyterian in Houston for years. We have an estimate indicating that HPPC can use a valet service 4 hours per Sunday, 52 Sundays per year, for almost 20 years…..for about the same estimated cost of a surface parking lot.
Other alternatives are to encourage families to ride to church together (the church has said that many families take more than one car to church every week) or to spread out worship service times so people don’t all arrive and leave at the same time.
For HP Guru and Signs of the Times: yes, we knew we were purchasing a home near a lovely historic church, and we knew that the church owned several homes on a nearby block…BUT, we did our research and learned that those homes were all occupied by ministers and their families, several with kids who went to school with our kids. We considered it a great asset to have a church AND its ministers and their families as our neighbors. Never did we dream that the church would adopt the current strategy-to displace these ministers, tear down the homes they had lived in, and build a surface parking lot!
University Boulevard and McFarlin Boulevard are two of the most recognizable and well traveled ‘signature’ streets in the City of UP. I hope that all UP homeowners would have a sense of pride about these gateway streets in the heart of our city. and would see that rezoning an entire city block for commercial use (which a parking lot would require) is not the best and highest use for this property. We love UP for its beautiful homes, wonderful caring neighbors, great amenities, and yes, its lovely churches. Numerous alternatives exist that would accommodate church members and preserve the quality and aesthetic of the neighborhood, not just for those living nearby, but for all UP residents. We hope our city leaders will agree.
Most people in the Park Cities are proud of our churches and their success. But, with that success comes some challenges for the churches and the neighbors who live around them.
Dallas has its own car culture. Unfortunately, that applies to work as well as worship.
A parking LOT? In the middle of UP residential?
Yes, let’s change the landscape of the community for the 4 hours a week the church needs its parking.
INSANE.
How does one get on the P & Z commission to shoot down idiotic ideas such as this?
The church must feel wonderful about itself. The pope would be proud of a power play like this(I know its not a catholic church).
Yes, let’s change the landscape of the community for the 4 hours a week the church needs its parking.
@ Grump
As a parishioner at HPPC, I was ambivalent about the parking lot. Actually, we did consider buying a house very close to the church but the idea of a parking lot scared me off. Thinking about it in these terms though, as I quoted you above…this seals the deal on my opinion of it.
The church serves the community for CBS BIble Study with hundreds of community members (neighbors) on Tuesdays, there are 300 boyscouts and dads there on Monday Nights (neighbors), the YMCA uses the gym to host Junior High Girls volleyball (neighbors), the Park Cities Basketball league this year hosted 300 Junior and senior high boys all winter for games (neighbors).
Remember again that in the middle of the residential area is a church, a fire station, a city hall and yes parks that get used a ton by the community. The City hall does have a parking lot too, it’s in the middle of a neighborhood surrounded by bushes so you can’t see it.
Ok I’m done. I just again don’t want the issue to be watered down. To the neighbors you keep using different tactics. Just say you don’t want a parking lot don’t try to say why the church doesn’t need it. Your argument is much stronger when you just say you don’t want it and stop trying to use arguments that are weaker.
City Hall: 30 space lot
Church: 145 space lot
“Our design task force has planned a plaza that uses our property to get 145 cars and our church vans off the streets, allowing our seniors, mobility impaired members, other members and visitors a beautiful and convenient place to park.”
Uh, why not just ask the abled bodied people to not park at the church?
I don’t think your multiple supportive reasons helps your argument. It just makes you look like you are hiding it. Just declair nimbyism and own it.
L
It is a confirmed fact that property values in a neighborhood decrease due to the introduction of a planned development. By the estimates of professional appraisers who have been consulted on the issue, the values of adjacent houses could decline by as much as twenty-five percent as a result of the church’s current plans. The pertinent reality is that we bought our houses when the 3900 block of University was zoned for single family homes, and if the new construction is approved, we will be forced to sell our houses at a discount because that status quo will have been violated. In effect, were the development to be implemented, we would lose up to a quarter of our most important personal assets in order for church and community members to expend slightly fewer calories in their weekly commutes. Yes it is true that church buildings are used on almost every day of the week. But to suggest that this usage necessitates a surface parking lot for convenience is either a plain sophism or a terrible reflection of your own peremptoriness. Before 1991 the church had more than twice its current membership and yet survived brilliantly with the same parallel and street parking it has now. For seniors and those with small children, we suggest valet parking. For everyone else, demanding a parking lot that is indisputably detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood simply in order to save a few sweat glands is grossly provincial.
Perhaps more unsettling, however, is the threat said parking lot poses to the integrity of the neighborhood itself. Besides the fact that two of our neighbors’ houses would be replaced by an incongruously conceived brick wall, the planned development would drastically change the constitution of the surrounding community in the long term. As time progresses, the church will have the precedent it needs to expand construction on the block even further, especially since the rezoning obstacle will have been surmounted. On top of that already insidious effect of uncertainty, the resentment and mistrust that a parking lot would incite (and, to a large degree, has already incited) among neighbors should be enough for the plans to be disregarded altogether. It saddens me that there is so little concern for the nefarious consequences that have already redounded upon the entire community for over a year as a result of this ridiculously expensive and unnecessary proposal, but I can only hope that the Planning and Zoning commission will make the right decision when it hears both sides this summer.
This is not the first time Scates has forced an unwanted parking lot upon church neighbors. When he was pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, he did the same thing, in spite of “a big uproar from the neighbors,” his words. If you look at the satellite image of this church and it’s 5 parking lots, it sure isn’t “pretty.” It’s 5 scars on the face of the planet and the one he installed (furthest lot NW) is almost entirely made of asphalt with a few small trees.
Please look for yourself (Google Earth: 7308 York, Baltimore. Satellite mode). I’ll bet he made that one sound great to the neighbors, too, when they took over park land to make that giant concrete slab.
But there is one thing Rev. Scates could adopt from his old church for HPPC. There is a group of volunteers who park in their most remote lot every sunday, thus freeing up the closer 4 lots for those who cannot or will not walk as far. I suggested to Scates that as head pastor, he could ask young and able-bodied volunteers to park a block away. Good-hearted, healthy Christians would have not problem with serving the church body this way, wouldn’t you think?
I live one block away from HPPC, a 2 1/2 minute walk to the front door, and there is parking every sunday on my block. This is LESS OF A WALK than from NEIMAN MARCUS to NORDSROMS! If church members aren’t willing to walk that far, maybe their hearts aren’t really in it, anyway.
In the end, this whole thing isn’t even really about parking. It’s about RE-ZONING and then being about to develop the entire block as the church wishes. When this was suggested to the Scates, he commented that if the church never expanded, he wouldn’t be sitting in the Hunt building right then.
This is all about usurping the block for future expansion. The parking lot is their Trojan Horse.
There are also a few neighbors who do not support the parking lot plans but who are AFRAID of voicing an opinion against their pastor and church. They may have good reason, for some church members who are opposing the parking lot have been ostracized inside the church walls. People are literally turning their backs to them as they pass.
There are also a few owners in the neighborhood who are not posting signs for business or political purposes. Just because there isn’t a sign does not mean the owners are in favor.
there is no need for a parking lot.
This whole thing is very distressful to me but the one thing that keeps popping up in my head is, HOW COULD THESE CHURCH LEADERS HAVE SO OVERWHELMINGLY VOTED FOR THE DENIGRATION OF AN ENTIRE BLOCK OF HOMES AND A NEIGHBORHOOD?!!
I can honestly say that I would not have, under ANY circumstances, voted to start taking down homes on a fully residential block to install a parking lot in front of other people’s homes. Not anywhere. Not in Kansas, not in NYC, not here. I’m sure most of the elders have homes of their own. They know how profoundly sentimental and protective all human beings are of them. They know that most people would not choose to live across from a parking lot. WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS TO US?!!
This parking lot issue has come up in previous years, but once the church leaders heard that the neighbors were upset about it, they shut the whole process down. This thoughtless vote clearly illustrates that we are now living in a graceless age where SELFISH DESIRE COMES BEFORE RESPECT FOR OTHERS and their property. And these are the”Christians.”
HPPC ministers and elders: You’ve made ‘Love thy neighbor” a complete joke.
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