WOODLAND PARK • A standing-room-only-crowd filled City Council chambers for a special Woodland Park Planning Commission meeting June 21.

The commission heard a request to amend the planned unit development/ planned business development for the Charis Bible College property. Jon Romero presented the request from applicant N.E.S. Inc. on behalf of New Life Holding Corporation and its affiliated nonprofit organizations Charis Bible College and Andrew Wommack Ministries.

Romero requested that the planning commission recommend approval of two items. The first was to change the height of proposed dormitories from 35 feet to 45 feet to accommodate the topography and the gabled roofs recommended in the city’s design standards. The buildings will remain three story.

Ordinarily, such variance requests go to the city’s

Board of Adjustment, but not in the case of a planned unit development or planned business development. Also, ordinarily, a PUD amendment would be approved outright by the planning commission. But changes to the dimensions of buildings constructed in PUDs require approval by council.

Four of the five commissioners present in person and on Zoom agreed changing the building height maximum to 45 feet was reasonable, considering the terrain and city standards.

Commission Chair Ken Hartsfield wanted to limit the change to just the north dormitory site because, he said, Romero didn’t present any information justifying the variance for the south site.

The commissioners recommended approval by a vote of 4-1.

The second request to remove Condition 14 from the original PUD/PBD approval in 2012. It requires temporary student housing to be privatized so it can be taxed separately from the rest of the property.

Condition 14 was created to

help the Northeast Teller County Fire Protection District deal with the additional growth posed by the Bible college. NETCO Fire Chief Tyler Lambert said that 98% of department funding comes from property taxes.

The Bible college and Andrew Wommack Ministries are exempt from taxes, but the fire department answers all emergency calls, which Lambert said have increased with every expansion at the college. He added that, while the department has the apparatus to fight a fire in a tall building, it doesn’t have the staffing. Between training, equipment, and salaries, it costs about $80,000 per year to hire a firefighter, he said.

The ministry’s attorney, Andrew Nussbaum of the firm of Nussbaum Speir Gleason, said these considerations are irrelevant, illegal, unenforceable and unworkable.

He cited the U.S. Constitution and statutes and the Colorado Constitution, which all exempt religious organizations from paying taxes.

“Wommack isn’t asking for special treatment, he is asking for the ministry’s constitutional rights,” Nussbaum said. “It also violates RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act).”

RLUIPA was enacted by Congress in 2000. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “The land use provisions of … RLUIPA … protect individuals, houses of worship, and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and landmarking laws.”

Commissioner Carrol Harvey, who also served on the commission in 2012, said the suggestion for privatization of came from the college’s representative at the time, Larry Bozeman. She also quoted Wommack in a 2011 article printed in the Colorado Springs Independent in which he says he wanted privatization

“Commissioner Carrol Harvey, who also served on the commission in 2012, said the suggestion for privatization of came from the college’s representative at the time, Larry Bozeman.

as a good neighbor.

“I read the minutes from that meeting differently,” Nussbaum said. “Tax revenue is not a land-use issue. You have no power to force the ministry to give up its beliefs.”

“We aren’t asking it to,” Harvey said. “The fire department is impacted because it isn’t being helped with taxes from a very large entity.”

In the end, at the suggestion of City Attorney Nina Williams, the commissioners voted 4-1 to send the privatization question to City Council without recommendation. They agreed that the tax and religious aspects of the case were not in their purview.

Williams pointed out that the statute of limitations for First Amendment cases has passed.

However, the commissioners decided to recommend keeping the language in Condition 14 that would require the dorms to provide temporary housing for students and not permanent housing for staff and administrators.

During public comment, dozens of people, most of them either Bible college students or staff, spoke in favor of both requests. In many cases they asked that the commissioners approve student housing, but Harvey pointed out that the student housing was already approved. The commission was only considering the height issue, she said.

This case is scheduled to be heard by the city council July 21.