With attendance down, Downey church considers plan to build affordable housing

Downey United Methodist Church is exploring plans to build affordable housing on its property. Photo by Alex Dominguez.

DOWNEY — Downey United Methodist Church is in the early stages of a plan to build affordable housing on its property, the church has announced.

The announcement was made by Pastor Brad Biggerstaff at the church’s 170th anniversary service held Sept. 8.

“Today we are excited to announce our intentions to redevelop our land and property, and build affordable family housing on our campus,” said Biggerstaff.

Biggerstaff said that the project is still in planning stages, however the church intended to build the aforementioned housing units, a space for the church, and the space for the church’s preschool “that will enable this church to continue it’s ministry and meet the needs of many families in Downey struggling to find housing.”

The church says that they are still in the early planning stages, and that nothing has been decided, finalized, nor filed with the city.

They have, however, been in contact with advisors who have suggested that as many as 100 units could be feasible.

“We have infinite possibilities right now because we do not have a developer,” said Marylen Long, who is on the church’s redevelopment committee. “We’re in the very beginning planning stages; we have so many options, and they all look inviting. Some include big changes, some include very little change.

“We’re just in the initial stages where anything is a possibility.”

Not everyone seems on board with the church’s announcement.

According to Mario Guerra, who sits on the Board of Directors for the Downtown Downey Improvement Association, Biggerstaff brought the project to the DDIA as well. Guerra, along with others who were in attendance at the meeting, said Biggerstaff pitched the project as a five-story, 100-unit project, with primarily street parking.

The church pushed back on these claims, saying that the pastor must have been misconstrued or misunderstood.

“We are going to be very legalistic; we’re going to follow all the laws and the rules regarding (parking),” said Long. “It’s not up to us how much parking we have. That will be according to the city and the standards; we’ll follow all of that.

“Certainly, it would not just be street parking.”

As part of the announcement, Biggerstaff said that the church had been faced with “hard conversations” since his arrival just over one year ago.

“We had hard conversations about the realities of a small, aging congregation. We had conversations about continued budget deficits. We had continued, hard conversations about many years of deferred maintenance and buildings that are falling apart,” said Biggerstaff. “Out of those confessional conversations, we faced the reality that this church needed to do something different, or meet the fates of many churches in this current day: closure.”

According to church members, membership is “in the hundreds,” but attendance is down to the thirties.

Despite this, the church says it’s not a financial decision. Instead, they say they are following the commandment to “love their neighbor as themselves” and “help others.”

Long says that they’re “reaching out to help others.”

“We are delighted to be able to be so generous with this property, because as you know we have this huge parking lot, and it would just be wonderful to be able to share that,” said Long. “It’s just that affordable housing has become the impossible dream for so many people – just regular people, our kids – and it shouldn’t be that way. I mean, that should be a given, that you can afford to rent an apartment, but for many people it’s not even affordable.

“What we’re looking to do is to have a place that is affordable for the people of Downey who work here, who want to live here; it’s our neighbor.”

Guerra, a Catholic deacon, expressed support for the church and its preschool but said the proposed housing project would “change the downtown forever.”

“We’re not anti-humans. We’re not anti-homeless. We’re not anti-affordable housing. It’s just got to be the right place for it,” said Guerra. “Downey Avenue, where we’ve worked so hard to make a business-perspective, and worked so hard for the downtown, I mean how many places do they get, the business owner says ‘Okay, we’re going to pay more taxes?’ We’re going to tax ourselves because we want to have it, entice people to come to our downtown.

“We want to do promotional activities, do the street fair, the street market, so forth. Hire security. For cleanliness, the downtown get’s power sprayed once a week, and cleaned up. Full-time employees cleaning up all that.

“You invest in all that and then you put 100 units on Downey Avenue, it’s just crazy to think that. And it’s crazy to think that 20 people can put their will onto an entire community in the downtown. That’s what I’m against.”

Hans Fritz, executive director of the DDIA, said that the DDIA has not taken an official stance on the project yet, but could do so at its next meeting.