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If a church owns two tracts of land, one which they had annexed into the city, the other is still county what zoning rules apply for the county tract. The land in the county is RS40, LI. The church is building a sports arena-walking trail on 7 acres. This area was all woods. Not now. The planning dept. is telling me that the land in the county doesn't have to be rezoned as it is part of the church. The church is on city land. Does anybody know?
I'm a bit confused, the 2nd church tract, outside the city limits, is zoned LI or RS40? If it's LI, then no, I wouldn't expect that they'd need to rezone for that use. But I'm no zoning expert. The city's ETJ probably extends 3 miles beyond its limits, which means that City planning and zoning have jurisdiction over the lot.
It is zoned both the first being RS40 then LI. I was told that you can have two or more zones on the land. I have a 100 foot property line that adjoins the church which was once complete woods. They have now cleared most of the woods right up to my property line and built a retention pond. This pond is a few feet on my property with the run off of the pond directly onto my land which will flow into a creek on my property which is about 6 feet from the pond. I need to put up a privacy fence for both privacy and security now that this land has been completely cleared but I cannot do it now because of this. That was the reason for asking about the zoning laws and what protection a landowner has which it seems is not much.
It can have different zoning classifications, but not for the same piece of the land. Part of it is light industrial and another is residential. Do you have an address for that church, or the name of it?
As far as I can tell, unless there has been a recent annexation, the entire church property is outside of the city. But that's not important. It looks as if the narrow tract is all RS-40. If their maps show a small portion of it as PI (I'm not seeing LI), then it's probably just a mistake on their zoning map that should be brought to their attention. What probably happened is that they updated the property boundaries but not the zoning line. I would bet that the description of the zoning boundary states that it follows the property line.
Is this use permitted in a RS-40 district? I don't know. I'd doubt it.
Thanks for your help. Everything that I have read on RS40 zoning reads as if they would not be able to do what they are. But the planning dept. is no help. All ordinances concerning how close to a stream land can be cleared along with destruction of natural surrounding landscape, noise and lights have been broken. I know I was told by the planning dept. that on my second lot that adjoins mine because it was not tied into my original land different laws would apply on what I would be able to do with the land. I guess there are double standards when it comes to a private land owner versus a church. Whether it is worth hiring an attorney I don't know.
There are always separate rules for churches. I learned that when a "church" moved into the vacant commercial building across the street from one of my previous homes and would have some kind of revival-type service a few nights each week, sometimes lasting until 1 a.m. When I asked them to try to respect their new neighbors and keep the noise down, especially late at night, the preacher so kindly asked me to get my "cracker ass" off of his property and then he and about 8 large men began threatening me with violence if I didn't leave. When I called the police with the first noise complaint, I watched them pull up to the building, stop for a few seconds, and then drive off without ever getting out. After several weeks and dozens of calls from me and my neighbors, the police actually told me to stop calling about the matter. I haven't lived there for more than 10 years, but they still worship just as loudly as ever.
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