Schweitzer Church rezoning highlights infrastructure concerns

At its Aug. 25 meeting, Springfield City Council approved an ordinance to rezone 10 acres in the immediate vicinity of Schweitzer Church to general retail with a conditional overlay district.

Prior to the council vote, sections of the property along Sunshine and Stanford streets had three different zoning designations: single-family residential, general retail and highway commercial. 

The property’s owner, Schweitzer Church Inc., intends to upgrade its parking lot for an expanding congregation, but some neighbors spoke during the public hearing Aug. 11 with concerns about the closure of two of the three exits from the church onto Sunshine Street to divert traffic to a driveway on East Stanford Street, a residential roadway located behind church property. 

Councilmember Brandon Jenson said he had been in conversation with the church about concerns posed by the project and some of the challenges they have faced. He said the church has committed to providing a gate closing off the new access onto Stanford when not needed by the congregation and to investigate the strategy of posting volunteers to help direct traffic. 

But Jenson said council needs to have a conversation about how the city has been built up over time and what the expectations of city residents are. 

“Our codes don’t really allow us to sort of phase that in but require us to trigger those improvements whenever development or redevelopment occurs,” he said. “It oftentimes feels like we’re trying to clean up not necessarily mistakes but unintended impacts from past decisions and how our city has developed over time.” 

He noted Sunshine’s dangers are well documented by the Missouri Department of Transportation, and the closure of some accesses make sense. 

He also said the city has underinvested in stormwater management and sidewalk improvements, though it is making progress in those areas. 

“We hear these issues time and time again on development proposals, particularly traffic impacts, stormwater management and sidewalks,” Jenson said. “These are all valid concerns that I think our residents are facing because they are things they are experiencing in real time.” 

He said the challenge is that residents with longstanding issues because of underinvestment by the city expect developers to solve the problem, but all the code requires is that developers don’t make the issue worse. 

“We as a city need to have a flexible and responsive funding mechanism to layer in with development, because these are real concerns that our residents are bringing to us,” he said. 

He added, “It’s not something we should place at the feet of the development community but should be something that we as a city should walk alongside with, provide funding to make those necessary public improvements and help make our city thrive.” 

The rezoning passed by a unanimous vote of council.