2009-92 REZONING PROPERTY - 901 NORTH MAIN STREET

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Grace United Methodist Church 901 North Main Street Decatur, IL 62521 Addendum to Petition for Rezoning November 2009 Section Four: Justification The Mission Statement of Grace United Methodist Church (GUMC) reads "Because of God's love, we are in the City for good, building a sanctuary of Grace." Our overall goal is to provide a welcoming, safe, secure environment for those who seek the Good News of a life with Jesus Christ. To that end, while other churches were moving to the outskirts of the city, GUMC made a commitment in the mid-1980s to remain in downtown Decatur. As part of this commitment, we have improved the area through construction of a new church building in 1985, landscaping, and purchase and removal of run-down properties adjacent to our campus. Some of these adjacent properties had been used for criminal activities. We also demolished our former church building in 2007 after it had fallen into disrepair and became economically unfeasible to renovate. The area it occupied is being converted into a "park" or garden area. As part of our continuing effort to improve this area of Decatur into "a sanctuary of Grace" and to attract people to participate in church ministries and events, below are projects being considered for a Planned Development zone. Please note that the only current project is item 1, a new lighted sign. Sign detail information is provided in separate documents attached. We do not have drawings, measurements, or site plans for the other projects at this time. (Please see the "Current"and `Proposed"site plan diagrams.) 1. Lighted sign with electronic message unit. In order to promote church activities and ministries, we are purchasing a new sign for our front lawn area. This will be placed in approximately the same position as our current sign. Under current R-6 zoning restrictions, signs are limited to 10 feet in height. Including the peak in our logo, the new sign and message unit are about 9 feet total. Hence, under the current R-6, the bottom of the message unit would only be about 1 foot above the ground. We would like to have the sign higher than 10 feet for the following reasons: a. Our logo includes a peak in the middle of about 2 feet in height. b. We would like to have the sign high enough to be visible to motorists on Main Street even if there are cars in our main parking lot. c. Having the bottom of the electronic message unit up 7 or 8 feet would reduce the potential for vandalism or tampering. Grace United Methodist Church Petition for Rezoning from R-6 to PD Justification—Page 1 of 3