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Church feels the wrath of NIMBY

By MARLENE SOKOL
Published June 24, 2005

CARROLLWOOD - There's a warmth to Northrop Terrace, a comfortable oldness that makes you think of childhood. The buildings are squat, almost shotgun-looking, shrouded by trees that have been here forever.

Just north on Casey Road is a ghastly steel TECO structure; behind that, an abandoned HARTline depot. South on Gunn Highway is a billboard that the neighbors didn't want.

People around here don't like ugly, and it's hard to blame them. Yards used to back up to dozens of pine trees. Now there's a scorched-earth quality, a clear view of the bad neighbor du jour.

It is none other than a church.

Monday night. Some 50 people have gathered at Oakwood Community Church, where an unfinished wall testifies to ongoing expansion. What started in a couple of houses is today a congregation of at least 200. They support orphaned children in Tampa. They have missions all over the world.

With growth comes the need to build more worship space, office space and classrooms for the children. Oakwood was at the tail end of such an expansion when T-Mobile USA came along, asking to lease land for a cellular tower.

They called it a "camouflage tower," or "flagpole tower" in their presentation to the neighbors.

It wouldn't matter if Catherine Zeta-Jones herself had given the pitch. The people - some wearing cell phones on their belts - didn't want it. Cell towers are unsightly, they said. They might be unhealthy. Light them and they keep you up at night. Don't light them and planes might crash.

But their real beef was not with T-Mobile. It was with the church.

"You're looking like idiots," said Dave Mancilla, president of the Carrollwood South homeowners association, addressing Kyle MacCullough, the church deacon in charge of construction.

"We have been lied to from day one," said Don Sismilich. He and the others described noise, construction dust, tree felling, and Sunday morning traffic that makes Casey Road impassable. "There is no end to what these people are asking us."

MacCullough was clearly taken aback by the hostility of the crowd, which included several young children. People were cutting the speakers off and yelling things like, "You're just out to make money."

Mancilla asked, "If you like it (the cell tower) so much, why don't you put it here in your parking lot?" Meaning, instead of near the homes.

But when T-Mobile lawyer Lauralee Westine asked if that would satisfy them, the crowd shouted, "NO!"

They didn't want the tower any which way. Not with an American flag, because with a flag you need lights. Not without a flag, because this is America.

MacCullough promised to convey their feelings to his board. But the crowd didn't seem to believe him. They wanted to know when the meeting would be, if they could attend and so forth.

Do we live in a world where we shout down deacons in a house of the Lord?

Or is something else going on here?

Circulating through the crowd was Rebecca Pruitt, who lives in one of the 40-year-old homes.

Pruitt, who works for the Tampa YMCA, moved back into the house on Northrop to care for her parents before they died. She and her sister, an insurance agent, are counting on the house as an asset for their future.

It's that way up and down the street, Pruitt said. "We're all in the 50 to 60 (age) range, and our homes are a big part of our retirement cushion."

When you put it that way, property values matter. Eyesores along Gunn have a ripple effect. Traffic, even from worshipers at church, is something you have to worry about.

A cell tower? Just another shovel full of dirt. But where does it end?

The next morning MacCullough was still reeling. The cell tower won't happen, he said. Church officials are discussing ways to mend fences with the neighborhood. Even before the meeting, Oakwood was getting ready to replace the trees, in accordance with county law. The finished product will be much prettier, with landscaping and grassy lots.

MacCullough also said there was a lot of misinformation floating around, some accusations that just weren't true. The land was bound to be developed, he said. It was just a matter of time. "It was like a jungle back there," he said. Perhaps the homeowners thought it would stay that way forever.

Nothing stays the same, especially in a place with so much growth. And no one gets a free pass.

Not even a church.

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 08:09:06]