Board of Adjustments approves Pioneer Drive Baptist Church expansion, grants setback variance

The Abilene Board of Adjustments approved a special exception and a variance that allow Pioneer Drive Baptist Church to expand a nonconforming structure and to reduce the required setback along South Seventh Street to 5 feet at 701 South Pioneer Drive.

Clarissa Ivy, a planner for the City of Abilene, told the board the church property is zoned residential single-family but has been used as a church and parking for several years. Ivy said most adjacent property is owned by the church, Bonham Elementary School lies to the east and an off-street parking agreement exists with the school. She said the proposal is consistent with the intent of the Land Development Code to locate nonresidential uses at arterial intersections and that the proposed expansion would not burden public facilities.

BJ Pritchard of EHT Engineering, representing the applicant, said the project replaces an original chapel from the 1950s with a new auditorium and worship center and that the existing building actually extends closer to the right-of-way than the proposed structure; the proposed footprint pulls back slightly from South Seventh Street. “We will observe the visibility side triangles and keep plenty of sight distance coming around the corner,” Pritchard said.

Jeff Scott, executive pastor at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church, said the congregation has considered a new sanctuary for decades and described the project as an investment in the neighborhood. “We fully anticipate this new sanctuary doing the same thing” for the community as previous expansions, Scott said.

Board discussion noted there is an existing nonconforming building that already encroaches past the 30-foot setback required along South Seventh Street and that the church is effectively landlocked on the block. A board member framed the lack of alternative building sites as a practical hardship in considering the variance.

A board member made a motion to approve both the special exception (to expand a legal nonconformity) and the variance (to allow the reduced setback), citing the staff report and the site constraints as justification; the motion carried on a unanimous roll call vote. The vote record shown in the transcript lists Miss Donaway, Mister Sintek, Miss Rizzi, Mister Haverd and Mister Loudermill as voting yes.

Under board procedure noted at the start of the meeting, an applicant granted a special exception or variance has 180 days from the decision to obtain any required building permit; appeals from the board’s decision may be filed to a court of record within 10 days of the action.