Oregon City planning panel approves church expansion, adds parking-safety condition after neighborhood objections

The Oregon City Planning Commission voted 4–0 to approve a conditional-use permit (CUP) and site-plan/design-review permit allowing Oregon City Evangelical Church to expand its sanctuary, build an adjacent parking lot and demolish two homes, with an amended condition requiring the applicant to work with the city engineer and AV Davis property owners to address parking and safety and to pay for signage and curb painting; the mitigations will be reviewed within six months.

City staff told the commission the church expansion would create a roughly 94,150-square-foot facility and that the CUP should be valid for 10 years from the city’s final decision; the staff report recommended 19 conditions of approval and concluded the application meets the city’s conditional-use and design-review criteria. "The condition use permit should be valid for 10 years in the final from the final decision of the city," staff said during its presentation.

The commission’s approval followed extended testimony from the applicant, the applicant’s counsel and architect, and neighbors who objected on private-deed-restriction and neighborhood-character grounds. "There have been a number of correspondence that the city has received from Ms. Hammond and Ms. Durham who are opponents to this application," the applicant’s attorney Chip Hudson said in court-style remarks summarizing Miller v. Bridal and related appeals. Hudson told commissioners that…