GREELEY, Colo. -- County commissioners gave a nod to LifeBridge Christian Church's plans to develop 313 acres of unincorporated land into more than 100 homes, 300 senior housing units, offices, stores, parks and a church campus with 1.5 million square feet of buildings.
The unanimous vote to rezone the land came despite objections from neighbors in surrounding subdivisions.
The Greeley Tribune reported that one neighbor, Peter Gries, told commissioners he would file a lawsuit against the county to halt the project. He is also leading a campaign to incorporate the area around LifeBridge land into a town.
Some buildings, including homes and a 2,500-seat sanctuary, will be built within the next five years. Other parts of the project will be built over several decades. Each phase will require commissioners' approval before it can be started.
Addressing some of the neighbors' concerns, the church offered to limit the north-south length of buildings to a 250-foot maximum, create a minimum distance between those buildings of 75 feet, and keep 80 percent of the campus' east 60 acres free of buildings, the newspaper reported.
LifeBridge administrator Bruce Grinnell said the change was intended to increase the project's compatibility with surrounding subdivisions. The commissioners said these concessions were a real effort for compromise.
"Their feet have been held to the fire by the neighbors, as they should be," Commissioner Bill Jerke said. "I see there has been a lot of give and take."
LifeBridge is currently in Longmont. Since 1991 the church's attendance has grown from 700 to 2,700. But Grinnell said Boulder County and Longmont weren't open to growth, so LifeBridge bought the Weld County land. The church's pastor has said the new site is a place where the congregation could grow to 15,000.
"We chose to walk away from Longmont because of the time it would take and the money it would cost, not knowing what the outcome of the process would be," Grinnell said. "It was politics."
