Grace City Church Neighbors Speak Out at Public Hearing
Lodge official complaints about traffic, noise, parking, and negative impacts on the community ahead of a public hearing over a proposed new building
Members of the Wenatchee community voiced their concerns about Grace City Church’s impact on the Sunnyslope neighborhood at a public hearing at Wenatchee City Hall on July 25, 2022.
The hearing was to take public input regarding a new 12,000-square-foot “children’s training space” GCC leaders propose to build on their 12-acre campus, according to a letter from the City of Wenatchee.
Four community members sent official letters of complaint about GCC’s impact on the neighborhood and objected to the new building.
They also showed up in person to testify under oath before Hearing Examiner Andrew Kottkamp, who will make the final recommendation regarding the permit for the proposed new building.
Kyle Strong, Grace City Church’s executive pastor of finances, also went under oath to testify on behalf of the organization and state why they should be allowed to construct the new building.
What follows is a combination of quotes from the hearing and excerpts from the official letters of complaint from community members.
Maggie Boles submitted a detailed letter of complaint before the hearing and spoke on behalf of her parents, who live near GCC’s 12-acre “compound.”
“When this project was originally permitted by Chelan County in 2015, the scope of the project was not clearly identified. The neighborhood did not submit comments, or voice concerns, because a typical church typically has minimal impacts to a neighborhood,” she wrote in her letter. “Over the years, as the compound was built, it was apparent that this facility is not an ordinary church, and the impacts are far greater than originally perceived.”
At the hearing, Boles said she and other neighbors had concerns about allowing the expansion of a project that already has so many issues of concern for the neighborhood.
“The original site plan, which I did bring a copy of the original site plan, and I’m sure you probably have that in the filed records, had three buildings that were connected in the center of this site,” Boles said at the hearing. “And when they finally got to building it expanded into three separate buildings on three very separate areas on the property.”
She said the expectation was to have a large building in the middle, parking all around, and then open space.
“And now we have a massive building in the middle, another building here, another building here, in closer proximity to the neighborhood without that buffer, that open space,” she said. “So there is a concern that that was allowed to be a significant site plan change without public input, without an amendment to the CUP.”
She said the layout of buildings on a compound like GCC’s makes a significant impact on an existing residential community and that her parents and other neighbors feel like their voices have gone unheard.
“A lot of the original CUP was vague, intentionally.” She said. And they’re using the current facility on multiple times throughout the year on a Saturday and Sunday basically as a convention center.”
Boles said she realized the purpose of the hearing was to address this new CUP, but the fact that GCC has colored outside the lines with their previous CUP should be addressed and noted.
“What was approved in the original CUP was up to 270 parking spaces, and that’s based on the church use,” she said. “When they have these big conventions and they remove half of the parking for the convention so that they can host events in the parking lot, it does impact the neighborhood.”
“They park on my parent’s street. They park up and down Melody Lane. They park at the Forest Service building,” Boles said. “They’re all over the place.”
Boles is in planning and development herself and said the proper process for a project like this was not followed. In her letter, she asked the city of Wenatchee to reconsider waiving the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process for this proposed project because it’s a new CUP.
A SEPA process identifies and analyzes environmental impacts associated with governmental decisions.
“I don't believe the original SEPA checklist and determination is adequate for this new proposal,” she wrote. “Because the original building was not SEPA Exempt, and with this new addition the total proposal exceeds the original permitted 40,000 sq ft of buildings, SEPA should be applied. The SEPA guidelines on DOE's website speak to this.”
According to GCC’s “Lift Off 2021” document, the children’s training space wasn’t a part of the plan as recently as last year.
Boles wrote that her concerns have fallen on deaf ears at the City of Wenatchee.
Sunnyslope resident Ashlee Davis was next to speak.
“When Grace City Church first published their plans for a compound in Sunnyslope, our neighborhood was apprehensive. A group of us met with church leadership early on and they told us they only ever intended to be good neighbors and that we have nothing to worry about,” Davis said. “Fast forward to today and our neighborhood is constantly bothered by the noise, light, sound and traffic that is generated by Grace City Church.”
She said neighbors have to call Rivercom on a weekly basis because of the noise, and the base wakes people up on Sunday mornings. Davis said they constructed a parking lot without a permit and didn’t cease the project when they were first asked to stop the work.
She said the original plan called for an amphitheater behind the chapel, and even though it wasn’t approved they recently landscaped it for terraced seating.
“When Grace City Church applied for the permits to add ‘the barn’ to their compound they stated in their permitting documents that it would be used for storage,” she said. “At the same time, their pastor Josh McPherson was publicly announcing the building would have way more uses and would make Pybus Market look like ‘the C team.’”
Their intentions don’t line up with what they write on official documents, Davis said.
“These types of bait-and-switch scenarios should not be accommodated,” she said. “There are no repercussions for Grace City Church for failing to abide by the law and I fear they believe they are too big of a giant to be reckoned with.”
She said the CUP for the new building states they don’t need additional parking, but they don’t have enough spaces for the compound currently.
Dr. James Ethier, a retiree whose property overlooks GCC’s compound, also focused on the lack of adequate parking. In his letter of complaint for the hearing, he took issue with the fact that GCC leaders seemed to dismiss that traffic could be an issue.
“I note that in the CUP proposal, a Traffic Impact Analysis is checked as ‘N/A’. I strongly disagree. A traffic analysis is necessary,” he wrote. “Already, the two services on Sunday mornings have congregation vehicles parked in additional rows not included in the original plans for 270 spaces. The traffic through the neighborhood and especially on W Peters St is disruptive and excessive. I ask that a traffic study be included in the CUP submission.”
Ethier also spoke at the hearing.
“What we’ve seen in the last four years since the construction started in 2018 is just more and more traffic issues in the area,” he said. “And just to think of this project having impact on Sundays – I really think that that is quite short-sighted.”
Tamara Hively, another neighbor, shares her neighbors’ mistrust of the information GCC leaders have provided during the application and permitting process.
She wrote as much in her official letter of complaint she submitted to the city ahead of the hearing.
“Grace City Church is not, and has never been, a good neighbor,” she wrote. “They have huge plans for their compound and if stating a building project is for ‘storage,’ knowing full well that it is not for storage, but for a barn to hold offices, meetings, classes, shops, etc. (all found on their website, by the way), then I expect them to be dishonest on other things as well. They will do whatever they want, and they continue to get the city’s blessing.
Grace City Church’s Position
Kyle Strong, executive pastor of finances for Grace City Church, testified on behalf of the organization and answered questions from Hearing Examiner Kottkamp.
“Just from a layman’s look at this thing, 12,000 square feet for a Sunday morning Bible study for children seems like a lot of space,” Kottkamp said. “So what’s all going to be in there?”
Strong replied.
“Well, our children’s ministry, which includes youth, runs from zero to senior year in high school, and so on any given Sunday morning we will have hundreds of zero to 18-year-olds at our church at that time,” he said.
Strong said the current children’s space is only 8,000 square feet and designed for zero to six-year-olds, but that’s not enough to meet the needs of their youth ministry.
“And this 12,000 square feet is Sunday morning, children only, and the rest of the week it’s lights out, doors locked?” Kottkamp asked.
Strong confirmed that would be the case and said they don’t currently use all 40,000 square feet they have already built Monday through Sunday.
“You know our quote-unquote ‘industry’ is we gather a lot of people together and so typically that happens on Sunday mornings,” he said.
Strong did go on to admit that they also have a lot of people on Thursdays as well, and he didn’t want to rule out using the space on those days. But he said the priority right now is to have more space on Sundays.
You can listen to Strong’s opening testimony and Kottkamp’s questions in their entirety here.
The next step in the process is for Hearing Examiner Kottkamp to make his recommendation within ten days of the hearing. I will update this piece with his decision when it is made public.
The consensus among the community members who testified against approval of the proposed new building said they felt like they heard, this time. However, they expect the project to be approved.
“I felt like Andy listened to our concerns but I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing other than a straight approval comes from him,” Davis wrote in an email.
Source Material, Additional Media Coverage, Etc.
In related news, the city of Wenatchee is pursuing a noise violation complaint and appealing Judge Jon Volyn’s decision to throw it out, according to NCWLIFE. You can read about that here.
If you would like to read Maggie Boles full letter of complaint, you can do so here.
If you’d like to view the photos Tamara Hively submitted with her letter, you can do so here.
Below is “The Launch Pad” video on Grace City Church’s YouTube channel. It’s set to play right at the point when Pastor Josh McPherson talks about “The Barn” and elaborates on how it will house restaurants, office space and “clear open-training space for Grace Kids, Life Track University and Vector Academy.”
“It’s going to make Pybus look like a JV, you know, C-squad basketball team,” Josh McPherson said. “It’s going to be awesome.”
And if you’d like to view all the permits GCC applied for with the City of Wenatchee, both approved and pending, you can find them via the city’s portal here.
While I generally bemoan complaints about people parking cars on public streets as it gives me strong anti-housing vibes (and is perfectly legal), what we have here is something completely different, and a somewhat unique for a public meeting format (at least from what I'm used to). As Maggie points out, GCC has repeatedly performed a bait and switch with their land and building use.
DebbieY said it well about about GCC's reach and I absolutely agree. There's enough people involved in local leadership that GCC will get what they want, and "training center" for children that gives me hella militia vibes. These poor children. It's still a small community and I've seen what a powerful group and name can do, as a third generation from the valley.
This church is so far gone from the bible it's laughable. What we have here is a Men's Rights Activist organization who doesn't pay taxes. Scripture is merely performative.
Great article Dominick. Thank you for keeping this problem relevant. It has been several years of dealing with these grifters and watching them do whatever they please. The next Vector Academy states another house will be built by the kids. I wonder who this will be for. I doubt it will be a homeless person.