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 Even since zoning laws were instituted in towns all across Georgia, churches have been treated differently, getting around some rules and regulations that private businesses could not. They have traditionally been allowed to build on land designated for business or residential use, getting easy government approval as religious institutions.
However, as small towns such as Jefferson update their laws to guide city planning and strengthen their downtown areas, older churches are finding it more difficult than ever to expand, especially those near historical downtown business districts
"Historically, places have just avoided the subject [of where churches should be] altogether," said Jefferson City Manager John Ward. "But cities who have updated their codes typically are treating churches as they would any other development, weighing the impacts of the building and the benefit to the community."
Jefferson is one the only towns in Northeast Georgia to place restrictions on churches that wish to build and expand. Most codes in other counties and cities codes - including those in Athens-Clarke, Barrow and Jackson counties, and in Winder and Auburn - allow churches to build almost anywhere except industrial zones and some agricultural areas. Jefferson planners, on the other hand, restrict their town's churches to land zoned for office use and rural residential communities.
So far this year, Jefferson's restrictions have kept one downtown church from expanding and complicated things considerably for another.
In January 2008, the leaders of Jefferson First Baptist Church were disappointed to learn that they could not open a new food bank out of a house near the church, as this house's property was zoned for residential use only. The house was located on a lot too small for council members to change the zoning to office-institutional use, and the church is not legally allowed to operate out of such a residentially zoned building. Due to these restrictions, the church members will have to continue to operate their food bank out of their main church building.
Additionally, members of Jefferson First United Methodist Church are waiting to find out if the city council will rezone 1.8 acres across the street from their century-old sanctuary to allow church expansion. The growing church, which currently has about 400 members, says they need the land for parking and construction of a church education building.
According to Ronald Bond, the church's building committee chairman, if the church can not find a solution to the the zoning regulations, they may be forced to move out of their historic downtown sanctuary.
"There is not really a problem with requiring churches to be in one particular zone or another," said Tim Cornelision, chairman of the Jackson County Planning Commission. "But most counties and cities do allow churches to build in most areas."
Church members are optimistic the council will approve their request, despite many protests from the church's neighbors, who are afraid the parking lot will ruin the historic nature of the are and attract too many loiterers.
"We want to move this forward, improving the relationship with our neighbors as we have always done," Cornelision said Thursday.
But he has said in the past he feels the church is under attack because neighbors don't want it to expand.
"Churches have to be treated like other uses because they have impacts on other people's property like any other development," Ward said. "You can have a church in a storefront, but then you have to ask if it's fair that one entity's business takes up most of the parking spaces at certain times of the week.
"Religion isn't only Wednesday and Sundays. If we had a synagogue that wanted to open in that storefront, then people would be there on Saturdays; if it was a mosque, it would be Fridays. We have to take into account all of those possibilities when you write an ordinance governing churches, because you're going to have to treat them the same."
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