The apartment building at 5 Park St. and another building are slated for demolition under a plan proposed by officials from the First Church of Waterville. The church officials want to expand the church’s parking lot and add a ramp for those entering and exiting the building. The Waterville City Council voted Tuesday night to send the matter back to the Planning Board to consider a neighbor’s request to add more landscaping, prompting the church to sue the city. Amy Calder/Morning Sentinel file

First Church of Waterville is suing the city in federal court, claiming it is thwarting church efforts to do what it wants with its property and using discriminatory land-use regulations that burden the church’s rights of religious exercise.

The lawsuit comes just days after the City Council again sent the church’s rezoning application back to the Planning Board for more consideration.

More than a year ago, the church, located at 1 Park St., asked the city to change the zoning of its properties at 3, 5, and 7 Park St. so it could demolish two former apartment buildings and expand its parking lot abutting Park Street and Park Place. The buildings are at 3 and 5 Park St. and the parking lot is at 7 Park.

Neighbors objected to the request, saying it would change the residential and historic character of the neighborhood, increase traffic and eliminate five apartment units at a time when housing is desperately needed in the city.

After pushback from some elected officials and neighbors, church officials said they needed to remove the apartment duplex at 3 Park St. because they want to build a ramp for handicapped parishioners at the rear of the church, as the current ramp facing Elm Street was difficult to access.

The church’s lawyer, James Monteleone, of the Portland law firm Bernstein Shur, hinted during ongoing discussions with elected officials that suing the city over the matter wasn’t out of the question. He said at a Sept. 10, 2024 Planning Board meeting that federal law protects churches and stipulates government cannot impose land-use regulations that put a substantial burden on them.

After more than a year of debate, tweaking zoning language, sending the issue back and forth between the Planning Board and council, and compromises between church officials, neighbors, the City Council and Planning Board, with input from City Solicitor William A. Lee, it appeared that Tuesday the council would approve the church’s zoning request.

But neighbors at that meeting presented one more request that apparently had been proposed as part of the plan but was recently removed: to add landscaping at two corners of the church’s parking lot facing homes on Park Place. The council voted 3-2 Tuesday to send the request back to the Planning Board for recommendation, with the expectation that the council next month would consider approving it. The board may only make recommendations; the council has the final say on zoning changes.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by Monteleone and docketed Friday in U.S. District Court in Portland, cites as plaintiffs the church and senior pastor, Stephen Meidahl. The city, Mayor Mike Morris and city councilors are named as defendants.

The 17-page document alleges the city has “stymied First Church’s religious land use through imposition of a one-of-a-kind zoning ordinance applied against the Church Property and none other with conditions that are more restrictive than what the City imposes upon any neighboring parcel, residential or commercial.”

The lawsuit says the city maintains that the church’s unique zoning rules can prohibit the removal of two vacant and uninhabitable buildings, which prevents the church from installing an improved handicap-accessible entry to the church. The church needs the modified entry so that older and disabled congregants may be dropped off, according to the lawsuit. Now, they struggle to navigate an existing ramp that is more than 350 feet away from the nearest lawful vehicle drop-off, it says.

Late Thursday afternoon, City Clerk Patti Dubois sent out an email to Lee, Morris, councilors and City Manager Bryan Kaenrath, notifying them of a special council meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at the City Hall Annex at 46 Front St. The council will be asked to vote to go into executive session with legal counsel. Afterward, in open session, the council will be asked to reconsider the vote it took Tuesday to refer the church zoning issue regarding 3, 5 and 7 Park St. to the Planning Board.

City Councilor Flavia DeBrito, D-Ward 2, recommended at Tuesday’s council meeting that councilors send the landscaping matter back to the Planning Board for recommendation. On Thursday, DeBrito said she was disappointed the church filed suit against the city and she didn’t think the landscaping request was too much to ask, especially in light of the church’s plan to demolish two buildings.

“I feel very disappointed that we couldn’t compromise and it had to come down to this,” DeBrito said.

Councilor Cathy Herard, D-Ward 7, called the lawsuit “unfortunate and disappointing.”

“My hope was to come up with a plan that would benefit everyone, including safety as a priority and the request for green space from the neighbors,” Herard said Thursday in an email. “I appreciate that this has been a long and arduous process for the planning board and the city council, but I don’t believe these are unreasonable expectations given the scope of the project and its impact on the community.”

Phone and email messages left Thursday for Lee, the city solicitor, had not been returned as of late Thursday morning. Emails sent to other councilors also had not been returned.

Asked how long he thinks such litigation can take, Monteleone said Thursday in an email that it is impossible to estimate the duration of any civil litigation.

“A case could be ready for trial in as few as eight months or could require several years,” he said.

The lawsuit says the city not only denied the church’s request for relief, but found ways to increase the burden, including by imposing property taxes on the buildings the church doesn’t want. According to the lawsuit, the city recognized that the buildings the church wants to demolish serve no tax-exempt church purpose.

“Waterville’s arbitrary and discriminatory implementation of the Property’s land use regulations substantially burden First Church’s rights of religious exercise without any compelling government interest to do so,” it says.

The church is asking the court to declare that the city’s implementation of a Contract Zone for the church properties violates the church and congregants’ rights protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Maine Constitution. It also asks the court to award the church its costs and attorney fees and other relief it deems just and proper.

The lawsuit says the church was established in 1818.

Formerly the First Baptist Church of Waterville, the oldest public building in the city, the property was purchased by First Church in October 2023 and describes itself as nondenominational.