Naked City

The Hyde Park Baptist Church is back in court against the city of Austin, this time in state district court after an initial rejection in federal court earlier this year. The church is seeking to expand its proposed parking garage beyond the zoning limits installed under the city's Hyde Park neighborhood plan (the Neighborhood Conservation and Combining District), and over the opposition of its immediate neighbors, as represented by the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association. In its petition filed last month, the church argues that its evangelizing mission requires it to remain close to the student body of the University of Texas, and that "in order to fulfill its mission of spreading the gospel of Christ, it must necessarily grow in numbers (membership)." Therefore, it needs a bigger parking garage as much as it would "a larger sanctuary, a church library, or a prayer room," and the city's limits on the size of church parking facilities are "a restriction on the Church's free exercise of religion."

That constitutional argument has been successful elsewhere for churches, although the HPBC's citation is a little more threatening. "Thus according to history, practice, and faith-based principles of evangelism," the petition states, "HPBC attempts to build and expand its facilities before the need becomes critical, in the belief that its membership will grow to fill whatever facility it is able to construct." The neighbors in the shadow of the church spire might contemplate that prospect less enthusiastically than the congregation.

The remainder of the petition is a detailed argument over the history of the zoning dispute and the applicable ordinances and state laws. On Monday, July 15, the city responded with its answer to HPBC's petition, rejecting all the church's arguments and returning bluntly to the matter at hand: "HPBC agreed to the restrictions in the NCCD and now must live with them." The city has asked the court for a declaratory judgment against the church and a rejection of its constitutional claims.