Federal Way wary of megachurch

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Christian Faith Center already is a very big church. It wants to get bigger.

Pastor Casey Treat's nondenominational congregation in SeaTac has an option on 50 acres in Federal Way, a wooded wedge of land between Interstate 5 and Highway 99. What it proposes to build there might be the biggest church complex in Washington state.

The main sanctuary would seat 4,000 or 5,000, more than the Opera House at Seattle Center.

Buildings would cover 230,000 to 300,000 square feet - five or six football fields. Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, now the state's largest church, is 250,000 square feet.

"Building God's house in the new millennium," a promotional brochure for the project proclaims.

But some folks in Federal Way don't want this God's house for a neighbor. It has been called a monstrosity, a threat to the community.

And it has forced Federal Way city officials to engage in some civic soul-searching about churches - especially big churches - and how they fit in the growing city's future.

Where should they be built, or not built? How big is too big?

"For the most part, we are confident that a church brings good things to a community," says City Councilman Dean McColgan, "but you also have to look at the impact. And sometimes that impact can be negative."

The conflict has engulfed Federal Way as King County officials wrestle with a similar issue: proposed limits on church construction in the county's rural reaches, limits supporters say are needed to preserve rural character.

No one is talking about rural character in Federal Way, population 83,000, the state's seventh-largest city. But the two disputes do have some connections.

Lobbyist Martin Durkan Jr. is working for the churches in both fights. He says the difficulty Christian Faith Center has encountered in Federal Way suggests big religious institutions can't be prohibited outside the county's urban growth boundary on the assumption that they will find plenty of land, no red tape and a warm welcome inside the line.

"It's a fundamental problem with growth management: There's no place for large facilities," Durkan says. "It's really frustrating for Casey and the church."

This is a church that didn't exist 25 years ago. Treat, 45, a Tacoma native who has said he found religion in a drug-treatment program in his 20s, conducted Christian Faith Center's first services in 1980. Thirty people came.

Today it claims total attendance of 6,000 a week at its SeaTac sanctuary. It employs more than 100 people. It operates a school and a college.

Creating a megachurch

The $50 million complex it wants to build in Federal Way would meet anyone's definition of a megachurch.

Permit applications haven't yet been submitted. But the center's Web site, project brochure and materials provided to the city speak not just of a sanctuary, but of:

"It's almost like a university," Durkan says. Church members already have pledged enough money for the project, he says.

Christian Faith Center acquired the option on the property three years ago. But the site had one big problem: Federal Way's land-use rules didn't allow a church there. The property was zoned for business parks, one of the few categories in which churches aren't permitted.

So the center set out to change the rules.

Earlier this year the Federal Way Planning Commission gave its blessing to a change in the city's zoning code, supported by the church, that would have allowed megachurches - those with a seating capacity of 1,000 or more - only on lands zoned for business parks. It makes more sense to build them there than in residential neighborhoods, planners reasoned.

City officials said they weren't aiming just to accommodate Christian Faith, that the proposal was broader than that. But most of the people who showed up at public hearings didn't see it that way.

If you build it ...

Church officials, members and consultants testified in support of the code change, speaking of all the benefits the complex would provide. People who live in neighborhoods near the site spoke mostly of traffic.

"They're talking about more seats in the sanctuary than the Opera House," says Glenn Sawyer, whose home of 16 years is about five blocks away: "I know when I go to the Opera House how crowded Mercer Street is."

And, with a 1,000-student school, the impact on the area wouldn't be restricted just to Sunday mornings, he adds: "You'll have minivans going in and out of there all day long. ... We just don't have the infrastructure down here."

Sawyer and his allies won a victory last month when the City Council's land-use committee voted, 3 to 0, to reject the planning commission's recommendation.

Committee members said they feared more megachurches might be drawn to Federal Way if the entire business-park zone were opened up to them. "A church that size has a tremendous impact on the infrastructure," said Councilwoman Jeanne Burbidge. "What would happen if we got three of them?"

Members also expressed concern about the city's tax base: Churches don't pay property taxes. What's more, they said, limiting megachurches to the business-park zone would have precluded some long-established churches in residential areas with just under 1,000 seats from ever expanding.

"Our thinking was, maybe this is too bold a move at this time," Councilman Eric Faison said. "This wasn't about the Christian Faith proposal. It wasn't about freedom of religion. It was about changing our whole zoning code."

The full seven-member council will take up the issue tomorrow. Durkan expects it will follow the committee's recommendation. "We're not going to fight it," he said. "We can't win that fight."

But Christian Faith Center isn't ready to abandon its plans just yet. Before it began pushing for the zoning-code change, the church also asked the city to change the property's zoning, from business park to a category in which churches already are allowed.

That request hasn't been withdrawn. The planning commission is scheduled to consider it July 18.

Church spokesmen say they don't yet know whether Christian Faith will pursue a rezone. "We need a read from the city," says Morgan Llewellyn, the church's real-estate adviser. "Does Federal Way think it's a good idea? That's what we need to know."

Eric Pryne can be reached at 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com.