By Hank McCoy
The Parkland Planning and Zoning board voted to recommend the expansion of Coastal Community Church by 30,777 square feet.
Despite several members of the community speaking against the expansion during the public comment section of the July 23 meeting, the planning and zoning board voted unanimously to approve the recommendation by staff.
One of the public commenters was concerned about noise. The church’s legal representative, Michael Moskowitz of Moskowitz, Mandell, Salim & Simowitz explained that the city had monitored sound and decibel levels and found the church was below the max allowed by code; thus no violations have ever been levied against the church.
Despite this, he said the church will be putting in additional measures to help mitigate or even eliminating sound concerns.
“The walls in the current building are 8 inches thick, the walls in the new building will be 12 inches thick. The walls in the existing building were made of hollow blocks. While the walls in the new building will be poured solid concrete,” Moskowitz said.
The church is going even further to help address the sound concerns voiced by some residents, he added.
“We will be applying spray insulation on the underside of the roof deck that does not currently exist. In addition, we are going to orient the speakers in the sanctuary to the south, which is away from the housing,” Moskowitz said, “This is also different from the existing building. These changes will have the effect of mitigating if not eliminating those sound concerns.”
There was also a concern from a resident about the acreage to square foot ratio of the property and the fact that the building will be far larger than what is currently built.
Moskowitz said the expansion was always contemplated as part of the original site plans when the church plans were approved in 2017.
The staff report found that the application meets the technical requirements of code; however, it did have a series of exceptions to coincide, which the church didn’t have any issues with.
Next up: the Planning and Zoning board’s recommendation will be taken into consideration as it heads to the city commission for a vote tentatively set for August 19, 2020.
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