Primera Iglesia seeks special-exception approval to expand Capitol Heights church

Prince George's County Zoning Hearing Examiner Maureen McNeil held a Sept. 10, 2025, hearing on a special exception application from Primera Iglesia Adventista Ebenezer to expand an existing church and to obtain alternative compliance from portions of the county landscape manual. The property is described in the application as 0.62 acres made up of four tax parcels at 813, 815, 901 and 903 Cypress Tree Drive in Capitol Heights.

The applicant, represented by attorney Robert Antonetti of Shipley & Horn, asked the examiner to approve a building expansion that the application and witness testimony described as bringing the church to 3,919 square feet, with on-site parking sized to meet zoning requirements and site improvements including a new sidewalk, stormwater management and perimeter landscaping. Technical staff recommended approval with conditions in a report dated June 12, 2025, which the planning board endorsed June 26, 2025; the hearing record was closed at the end of the Sept. 10 proceeding and a decision was to follow.

Why this matters: The proposal raises typical neighborhood issues — parking and traffic, landscape buffering and site design — while the applicant says the project will modernize an existing house of worship, provide required on-site parking and reduce off-street impacts. Prince George's County rules require special-exception scrutiny for places of worship on smaller residential lots; staff and the applicant's witnesses framed the plan as designed to meet those standards while responding to site constraints.

Site and proposal details

Witnesses for the applicant described the site and plan in detail. Colliers Engineering and Design landscape architect Scott R. Wolford said the property totals 0.62 acres and is formed from four tax accounts; the current structure on the site is recorded in the application at about 1,337.67 square feet and the proposal would expand the building to a total of 3,919 square feet. Wolford testified that roughly 514 square feet of the existing building would be removed and a new addition would be constructed; the plan set shown at hearing includes civil, landscape, photometric and architectural sheets (Exhibits 40, 29, 30 and 11 in the hearing binder).

The plan shows one commercial driveway access on Cypress Tree Drive, a new parking area to the south of the building, an ADA-compliant route to a covered front portico, perimeter landscape buffers and a mix of 4-foot and 6-foot ornamental fencing. Wolford described three buffer yards and a 10-foot landscape strip along the 110-foot road frontage and said the planting schedules exceed required plant-unit counts in each buffer.

Landscape and alternative compliance requests

Wolford testified the application includes one alternative compliance request to the Prince George's County Landscape Manual (Section 4.7) to reduce a Type C buffer depth from the standard 30 feet to 20 feet and to reduce a related building setback from 40 feet to 25 feet because the lot is an infill parcel with limited buildable area. He said the plan nonetheless exceeds required plant-unit totals in each buffer. Wolford also said the applicant initially proposed a separate alternative compliance for the interior planting requirement (Section 4.3) but that a recalculation showed the internal parking area now meets the Section 4.3 standard and the Section 4.3 request is no longer necessary.

Photometric and site-features testimony

Wolford described the photometric plan (Exhibit 30) showing three 14-foot pole-mounted LED fixtures for the parking area and one two-head fixture at the front of the building; he said measured foot-candle values drop to zero at the property lines and that the plan avoids spill onto adjacent properties. Architectural elevations (Exhibit 11) show a single-story gabled building with a steeple; Wolford testified the building height measurement for zoning should be 17.2 feet when the steeple is excluded under the ordinance section cited at hearing (section 27-117).

Traffic and neighborhood impacts

Michael Lenhart, president of Lenhart Traffic Consulting Inc., testified on trip generation and traffic impacts. Using county trip-generation guidelines for weekday peaks and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) manual for typical church-service peaks, he testified that the proposed use would generate a de minimis number of weekday peak-hour trips (two in the morning and two in the evening) and would generate approximately 43 peak-hour trips during a Saturday service for an 80-seat church (about 21 entering, 22 exiting). Lenhart said the Saturday trips would be dispersed across multiple local routes and that the project is exempt from a subdivision certificate of adequacy because no subdivision is required for the proposal. He concluded that the roadway network serving Cypress Tree Drive can safely accommodate the project and that on-site parking would reduce potential on-street parking demand.

Neighbor concerns and applicant response

Resident Belinda Vines, who lives at 1002 Cypress Tree Drive, addressed the examiner during the hearing. Vines said she is not opposed to expansion but expressed concerns about parking and weekend traffic on the narrow residential street; she described watching people walk dogs and children play, cited two recent crashes involving parked cars, and noted other nearby church activities that use weekends. Lenhart responded that the study used county and ITE trip-generation rates; he acknowledged a church across the street (Corinth Baptist Church) and said peak times being at different days/times reduces combined traffic concentration. Antonetti said construction staging would be managed on-site and that no road closure was anticipated.

Planning and legal criteria

Land planner Mark Ferguson (Site Design Inc.) reviewed the application against the county zoning and master-plan context. He testified the site is in an established residential area (prior zone R-55, current RSF-65) and that plan Prince George's 2035 and the Subregion 4 master plan support institutional uses such as churches in residential neighborhoods when the zoning criteria and buffering requirements are met. Ferguson and Wolford agreed the plan complies with the specific special-exception criteria cited at hearing (section 27-341.02 and related standards) subject to minor plan-note corrections and the conditions that technical staff recommended.

Technical findings and conditions

Antonetti asked the examiner to take administrative notice of the technical staff report dated June 12, 2025, which the planning board endorsed June 26, 2025, recommending approval with conditions. Witnesses and counsel identified a set of proposed revised conditions (Exhibit 55) incorporating three edits Wolford requested: correct the minimum lot-width entry to 65 feet and the measured lot width to 149.2 feet; correct the plan table to show the building height as 17.2 feet (excluding the exempt steeple); and update internal parking-landscape schedule figures to reflect compliance with Section 4.3. Counsel also confirmed staff-permit-review items (adding building-footprint dimensions to sheet C200 and a note about channel letters) would be acceptable to the applicant team. No final action or vote occurred at the hearing; the examiner closed the record and said a decision would follow.

Quotes from the hearing

Michael Lenhart, president, Lenhart Traffic Consulting Inc.: “...we use the Institute for Transportation Engineers... that's where we came up with the 21 trips in, entering the service and 22 trips exiting the service.”

Pastor Hoover Portillo, president, Primera Iglesia Adventista Ebenezer: “Our main services are on Saturdays only.”

Next steps

The hearing record was closed at the Sept. 10 session. The zoning hearing examiner will issue a written decision; the record contains the staff report, plan set (civil, landscape, photometric, architectural), the traffic memo (Exhibit 15), witness resumes, and the applicant's exhibits noted in testimony. The decision will determine whether the special exception and the requested alternative compliance are approved and under which conditions.