By Cheryl Borgaard / The Daily News | Posted: Monday, April 19, 2010 11:40 pm
RAINIER — During a standing-room-only public hearing, the Rainier City Council narrowly rejected a move to block a Christian group's plan to change the old Rainier Middle School into a church and rehabilitation center for women and their children.
On a 3-2 vote, the council denied the appeal filed by Steve and Kathryn McGee, who opposed Mountain Ministries' plan to transform the school into a church with a "Women and Children's Life Skills Training Center."
It would be patterned after Mountain Ministries' operation about 10 miles up Rose Valley Road in Kelso. It is a faith-based program that helps people, some of them felons, overcome drug and alcohol addiction and other problems, such as eating disorders or the trauma of having been sexually or physically abused.
The Mountain Ministries permit application says it wants to remodel the classrooms into bedrooms and family suites to accommodate 30 women, children and staff.
In their appeal, the McGees state the proposal would make the school a "multiple-family dwelling." By city ordinance, the neighborhood surrounding the school at 604 East E. St. is zoned for single-family and two-family residences, they said.
"Thirty families in one unit is multi-family dwelling, and R2 (zone) does not allow that," Steve McGee said at the public hearing, adding "the proposed facility is not a church, nor is it church-supported."
McGee suggested the council consider allowing the school to be used as a church with conditions, but excluding the residential women and children's center.
Mountain Ministries pastor Jeff Dumke, said he was glad the subject of the church was brought up.
"What I'm understanding is there are no objections to having just a regular old church ... (but) we might not be traditional in many ways," he said. "Are we a drug and alcohol treatment place or are we a church? Our goal is to have people saved by Jesus Christ for all kinds of people, whether they're drug people, business people or any other kind of people. Well, my opinion and anyone who looks at us unbiased would say we're a church."
In February, the Rainier Planning Commission gave the OK to grant Mountain Ministries a conditional use permit to begin work on the building. The school closed in 2003, and the Vancouver Church of Truth bought it in February 2004 for $205,000. It donated the property and building to Mountain Missions in November.
Though most of the 50 to 60 people at the public hearing supported Mountain Ministries, about 10 to 12 detractors sided with the McGees. They cited extra burdens on police and fire safety and public roads, safety of surrounding residents and fears that neighborhood real estate values would fall.
Dumke said there have been no problems with the law or with neighbors during the nearly 20 years Mountain Ministries has been at work at Rose Valley.
"There is a long history with Mountain Ministries in Cowlitz County," he said. The Rainier Planning Commission "checked with the sheriff's office, they checked with probation officers. It's not a crime haven, not a blight, but truly a blessing."
After two-plus hours of testimony, the council rejected the McGees' appeal of Mountain Ministries' conditional use permit. Councilors Russ Moon, Dave Langford and Phil Butcher voted in favor of the project and Judith Taylor and Sloane Nelson voted to support the appeal. Councilors Vernae Christophersen and Mike Avent were absent.
After the vote, the McGees were told they have a right to appeal the City Council's decision.
"And we will," Kathryn McGee said, rising from her seat to exit the meeting.
Outside the meeting the McGees said their next step is to appeal to the state Land Use Board. They maintained their main concern was there would be a multi-family unit in a restricted zone.
"This has nothing to do with it being a church," Kathryn McGee said. "It's has nothing to do with quality, it's quantity," Steve McGee said.
Steve McGee said he's hopeful they can find success at the state level. The Land Use Board upheld an appeal similar to theirs in 2002 in Jackson County, he said.
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