TACOMA — Milton residents watched last week as crews began cutting down trees along Taylor Street, clearing the way for a long-disputed new megachurch.
In 2019, the Salvation Slavic Baptist Church applied to build a 92,000-square-foot church building with a 7,500-square-foot gym, K-12 school and parking lot for more than 500 cars. Four years later, it’s begun preparing the site for construction and will soon be issued a city permit for parking, utilities and underground work.
When Cheryl Reid-Simons first saw the trees come down, she was taken aback.
“It’s shocking,” said Reid-Simons, who lives across the street from the site. “I’ve had so many people come up to me who said that they found themselves teary when they saw it, because those trees have been there for longer than any of us.”
Originally, the site had 214 significant trees, about half of which are being cut down. The church will plant replacement trees on the property, city officials said.
City staff from Milton’s community development and public works departments will also be actively monitoring the site, said Angelie Stahlnecker, Milton’s planning manager.
Church officials declined to comment.
For neighbors like Reid-Simons and Chris Phillips, the work marks a definitive conclusion to a years-long battle against the development. The initial proposal quickly drew concern from neighbors, who felt a church of such size was simply too big for the neighborhood, which is zoned for residential single-family use.
Despite neighborhood opposition, the project was approved in 2021. Now, as Phillips gazes through her backyard to a spot where trees once towered, the sight of a newly cleared lot serves as a reminder of that lost battle.
“We felt like we were heard but not really listened to,” Phillips said.
One concern is the project’s implications for traffic. Phillips said she feels the church would be better suited for a major thoroughfare, and that 500 cars could easily overwhelm the neighborhood’s roads.
The project also yields concerns over its potential environmental and water-quality-related impacts. The roughly 20-acre property where the church will eventually go has two wetlands and a stream connecting to Surprise Lake.
Reid-Simons said she sees the project as a missed opportunity to address housing needs in Milton, adding that she wishes the land would be used to build new homes instead.
“I’m sure they’re lovely, wonderful people, and I think that there are a lot of places where this church could be where it would fit and be an asset,” Reid-Simons said. “I just don’t think in the middle of a single-family neighborhood is it.”
Residential single-family zoning allows for conditionally permitted buildings like schools and churches. According to the city, the church project fits within Milton’s comprehensive plan.
Reid-Simons said she hopes her predictions about the megachurch’s impacts are wrong. But she also hopes that other cities will see what’s happening in Milton and take steps to keep it from playing out in their own communities.
“If there was nothing the city could do about this, other cities better look at it and see what they can do to prevent this,” Reid-Simons said.
