Getting in compliance with land use regulations and concurrency requirements is a key part of any church construction project. Developing land and meeting the requirements of concurrency can cost a church as much as 40 percent of your total project budget, but most churches don't think to add this expense to their total project budget projections in the initial stages.

Here are just some of the things you might need to pay for in the realm of land use and site preparation before you even talk about designing and building your new church:

*Impact fees

*Utility extension fees

*Tap fees

*Tie-in costs

*Soil analysis and stabilization

*Retention

*Traffic studies

*Landscaping

*Signage

*Lighting

*Parking

*Offsite requirements

When you're planning a church construction project, it is common to find a piece of property that you think is going to be perfect for development, but when you look closer you may find there are land issues that will either cost you more money or make it impossible for you to build on the land (such as easements, wetlands and other issues).

Another big issue if you happen to be planning your project for an area that's not growing very quickly or is underdeveloped is known as concurrency. This means that city or county planners can compel you to slow down development on your project until such time that the infrastructure is in place to support your church buildings. So a piece of land can look perfect on the surface, but if you have to wait 10 years for the state to build a highway so your parishioners can get to church, that's not a good deal for you.

And if there are already roads where you are planning to build, the traffic trip counts will have to work in your favor for your project to be viable. The city or county will have a certain number of trips per day that it says are allowable on a certain street, and if you expect your project will exceed the number of trips suggested for that road, your development might not get approved.

The potential problems don't end just because you're building on to an existing structure or on property where your current church building exists. Such expansion projects can subject you to bringing the old building up to current codes, which can be very costly, and building on the same site as an older building can also make you subject to proving that the current building is up to code and meets all current regulations.

All of this makes it sound like your city or county doesn't want to you to expand or develop a church. While in some areas that could well be the case, the truth is that the planning process is blind and you would face the same regulations if you were building a store or a house as you do building a church. The key is to not resent the rules and to know that doing everything according to the regulations is part of the process of designing and building your dream church.