Editorial Editorial (July 29, 2005)

Should St. Clare's move?

What a shame that some homeowners in Valley Trails are opposing a long-sought goal of St. Clare's Episcopal Church to expand its 38-year-old facility at Hopyard Road and Valley Trails Drive, the gateway to the community. In their appeal of the Planning Commission's earlier approval of the expansion project, Valley Trails homeowners Carl Pretzel and Phillip Sayre argued successfully before the City Council that the church should be denied the required conditional use permit to start the work until it scales back or modifies its plans to satisfy the neighborhood. The council agreed and asked City Manager Nelson Fialho to hire an outside, independent facilitator at taxpayer expense to hold meetings between the Valley Trails group and the church to resolve the differences. That may work, although church administrators and Principal Planner Donna Decker said the two sides have met repeatedly, including two meetings she attended, but without resolution. The Planning Commission approved only the first phase of the church's three-phase, 25-year-long expansion plan, which means the church will have to keep going through the lengthy application and appeal process time and again. Already, the delays for starting the first phase of expanding the church sanctuary and meeting room, have cost the church thousands of dollars as building construction costs escalate.

Pretzel and Sayre said they want the architect's long-range buildout plan to be changed so that the proposed, added church parking lots don't extend toward residential streets. They're also concerned that the unsupervised lots could attract undesirable activities at night. Their opposition was buoyed this week by Prudential California Realty of Pleasanton, which sent a news release to the media praising its newest Realtor Connie Cox for helping to establish the Valley Trails Homeowner's Association where she has "rallied the Valley Trails homeowners to persuade the mayor and council members to put the brakes on the planned expansion of St. Clare's Episcopal Church."

Churches have not always fared well in Pleasanton. A task force recommended several years ago that at least five acres be made available on the newly acquired public lands on Bernal for a church. The council nixed the plan as inappropriate because it might favor one church over another. However, it has set land aside for a privately run YMCA on the same acreage. Last year, the Planning Commission sided with neighbors who objected to an assisted living and skilled nursing care facility on a five acre site owned by St. Augustine Catholic Church. The Catholic-Lutheran senior care coalition gave up the fight and built its facility elsewhere.

Other churches have expanded without complaints by simply relocating. Pleasanton Presbyterians, crowded into their Mirador Drive facility every Sunday and during many weekday activities, worked with Ponderosa Homes to acquire a six-acre site at the corner of Valley Avenue and Busch Road. With Ponderosa's help, the church won Planning Commission approval for its entire multi-phased expansion project, and will sell its church property on Mirador Road. Congregation Beth Emek did the same, moving from a residential area in Livermore into its new synagogue at Bernal Avenue at the Arroyo del Valle, a commercially-zoned district with no homes nearby. Valley Bible Church at the Crossing moved its fast-growing congregation into a former Volvo distribution center on Johnson Drive, next to ClubSport Pleasanton. Larger churches such as Valley Christian in Dublin and Cornerstone across from Costco in Livermore are on sites far from homes and apartments with ample parking and room to expand.

Faced with what looks like continued, long-term and never-ending opposition to its neighborhood expansion plans, and with numerous vacant and less expensive commercial and office building sites available, this might be the time for St. Clare's to take advantage of the top dollars being paid for premium residential acreage like it owns and move to friendlier turf. It's a decision that worked for Beth Emek, the Presbyterians and other hemmed-in churches, and one that we think would bring peace and greater outreach opportunities to St. Clare's, too.

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