For Star subscribers: The dispute over a rapidly growing church's expansion plans in the Tucson suburb have broad implications for the intersection between municipal land-use rules and religious freedom.
Henry Brean A zoning dispute of biblical proportions is now entering its fourth year in Oro Valley, where hot pink protest signs lead the way to the unlikely center of the standoff: a decades-old church at the heart of this suburban town.
People are also reading… That vote is expected to happen in the fall, after the church submits the latest version of its proposal with updated traffic data the town recently collected in the area. “It's not a religious situation. I want to emphasize that,” Tim Tarris said. “We're not arguing about their faith or ours. We're arguing about a complex that they want to put in there.”The congregation has roughly doubled in size since 2015, with Sunday services that typically draw about 3,000 worshippers.
Collins said the church started its youth sports program in 2018 as a way to spread the gospel by connecting with more kids and families. Since then, Collins said, church officials have made numerous other changes to ease the impact of the project on surrounding residents. They added an 8-foot sound wall around the outdoor field, moved a proposed driveway to keep the headlights of vehicles from shining directly into a house across the street, and agreed to pay for a new center turn lane on Calle Concordia to improve overall traffic flow.
“We've said this from the beginning: They have asked all the right questions, and they deserve answers from us,” he said. “The problem that we're running into is they don't like the answers.” In a staff report to the commissioners prior to their decision, a senior planner for the town listed a number of reasons why the proposal was incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood. Ultimately, though, she recommended its approval because “federal and state statutes and case law take precedence over local policy and ordinances.”
Tim Tarris said one member of their group was threatened by someone driving through the neighborhood, while others have had their yard signs stolen or vandalized. “I moved into a nice quiet place, and there was a little church in behind some trees,” she said. “Now I feel like I'm living next to a megachurch, and it's getting worse.”
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