Nigerian megachurch proposed in Crofton

[mvee]

Has anyone heard about this?


http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ph-ac-cn-winners-megachurch-0730-20150729-14-story.html


https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=885751158158700&id=278400065560482

The next public information meeting for the Winner's Circle development planned for Cox Road has been announced:
Tuesday, August 18th at 7:30 PM - 9 PM
Village Commons Community Center
1326 Main Chapel Way,
Gambrills, MD 21054
(in the Waugh Chapel shopping near the clock tower and behind Robert Andrew Salon & Spa)
Sorry for the short notice, but we are just receiving word of this now. Many questions were left unanswered at the July 30th meeting and many of you were unable to make it inside to add your voice. So please make plans to come out and share your concerns here! It will be a larger meeting space than the library, but given the large amount of interest, it is anticipated the room will fill quickly! Please share this with your family, friends and neighbors and get the word out! Lets make it unanimous that 64,000 square foot commercial style building is totally inappropriate for the site and the traffic it brings to an already stressed Route 450!

 

[Rack&Roll]

Send them a letter, telling them you are an American prince with a problem...

I'm sure they will respond most quickly!

(seriously...I hope your effort gains traction. These mega-churches can warp the traffic flow as if there is a college arena game letting out 52 times a year.

 

[mvee]

Yeah they seem to be doing a lot of shady stuff to begin building with out proper review.

 

[Rack&Roll]

It appears they are asking for 299 parking spaces so they don't trigger a more comprehensive review for project that happens with 300+ spaces.

A Nigerian scam in our own backyard. Enough!

 

[mvee]

Memo from the Crofton Town Manager regarding proposed church on Cox Road:
August 3, 2015
RE: Public Meeting about Winners Chapel Church Project

The first public information meeting regarding the Winners Chapel Church Project on Cox Road was held Thursday night at the Crofton Library. The number of attendees was much greater than anticipated. A speaker system was quickly set up so that those persons who were outside the library could monitor the proceedings. Two Anne Arundel County Police officers were detailed to the meeting when it became clear that the crowd was in excess of the meeting room’s capacity.
The meeting was presided over by State Delegate Neil Parrott (Washington County) who was there in his role as the representative for the Winners Chapel group. Mr. Parrott is a traffic engineer who has his own traffic engineering firm. Mr. Parrott opened the meeting with a presentation about the project. He stated that questions would not be taken until after the presentation. There was some displeasure with that, but the meeting was conducted in that fashion.
Mr. Parrott stated that they were aware of potential traffic problems and intended to ameliorate those problems primarily in three ways. The church wants to install a deceleration lane and an acceleration lane on Defense Highway. That can only be done if the people who own the affected property are willing to sell, which does not appear to be the case. They also plan on substantially widening Cox Road, but only that part of it that will be in front of the church. Finally, they plan on controlling traffic during Sunday services by hiring off-duty police officers to direct traffic. Their plan is to place one officer at Defense Highway and Old Willow Way, and a second officer at the intersection of Defense Highway, Cox Road and Tarrytown Avenue.
Also during the presentation, we were informed that the initial plan to extend County water and sewer services to the church was likely to be scrapped, in favor of a septic system and a well. Also considerable work will be done to manage storm water runoff. The remainder of the initial presentation was devoted primarily to the standard statements about how pleased the church was with the turnout and how much they appreciated the feedback they were getting.
After the presentation, the question and comment portion of the meeting followed. However, at first he only accepted questions from “elected representatives”, which included Senator Ed Reilly, Delegate Michael Malone and Councilman Jerry Walker. At the end of his questions, Senator Reilly asked how many in attendance were in favor of the project. No one in the meeting room expressed support. Mr. Walker noted that the traffic study done by the church did not take into account the impact on traffic that is created each fall during the Renaissance Festival. Later in the meeting, it was established that the traffic counts upon which the study was based were made in late February or early March. Mr. Parrott indicated that further studies would be done this fall during the period of the festival.
Finally, questions were taken from members of the audience. The general impression was that the spokesmen generally thanked residents for their input without answering the questions and then moved on to another person. When asked, how, given the obvious problems associated with this location, the site was selected, Mr. Parrott attempted to move on without providing an answer. Some attendees demanded an answer. To the extent that the question was answered, it appeared that the decision was an economic one, based upon the availability of relatively inexpensive land. Another question about how emergency services would be able to access the homes at the end of Cox Road if there was an emergency during hours when the large numbers of cars were arriving or departing the church was not really answered.
Several people asked about how a facility as large as the planned church could possibly secure an adequate supply of water from a well. There were also several questions about the impact the storm water run-off will have on the nearby stream, the roadway and homes and driveways behind the church. The civil engineer for the church tried to reassure everyone that adequate arrangements would be made to address, septic, water supply and storm water run-off issues. The audience did not appear to be convinced.
During the meeting, Mr. Parrott and the project manager stated several times that more public meetings will be scheduled. I think it would be fair to say that most of the attendees did not feel that such meetings would be meaningful. Those of us who signed in are supposed to receive minutes of the meeting and other information via email. We will forward any useful information that we receive.
It should be noted that, regardless of whatever position the CCA Board might take about this matter, basically the only tool the CCA has is influence. The project is outside of the Tax District. We encourage people who are concerned to contact their State Senator and Delegates (regarding the impact on State Highway Route 450), as well as their County Councilman (regarding any zoning issues that may arise, as well as the permitting process).
Thank you,
Larry Schweinsburg
Town Manager

 

[protegeV]

We have one of these next to our church in the city. They started out by locating in an old mcdonalds. A year later they built huge additions that take up the whole property. Then they started asking to use part of our parking lot because theirs could not hold everyone. Now they take up over a quarter of our lot(it has about 800 spaces) and they have members wear reflective vests and "attempt" to direct traffic.

 

[Mark75H]

No way that part of 450 can support that kind of traffic

 

[Mr. Ed]

There has been, and still is, a tremendous Nigerian criminal element in this country that obtains fraudulent identification for the purpose of getting multiple credit cards and bank accounts in each of the aliases. When I was in bank security back in the 90s in Montgomery county, we had an instance of three local Nigerians who each had obtained 25 (count them, twenty five) aliases complete with drivers license, and multiple credit cards in each alias.

Their MO was to set up one guy in a private house with a bunch of phone lines coming in. He would have multiple cheat sheets, so that when someone called to verify employment, residence, and anything else, he could look it up and quickly verify the info.

Then, the bad guys (I can't use the words I'd like to) use the fraudulent credit cards to buy a shit ton of merchandise to be shipped back to Nigeria. There are freight consolidators who specialize in combining these purchases into containers to go back to the home country. When I was working with TSA Inspectors, we actually did surveillance on one of these consolidators. Good fun!

After a few weeks, the bad guys close up shop, move out of the house leaving no clues and a lot of unpaid bills, and move to another location far enough away so that there is little chance of getting caught. They are taught how to do this stuff by a banker in Lagos, Nigeria. I almost caught one of these dirtbags once, but he outran me and I couldn't justify shooting him in the back. But I really thought about it. I HATE thieves!

There are lots of Nigerians in this country. I'm sure some are decent and honest people, but most of the ones I've met and dealt with are professional criminals. Having a Nigerian church, or anything else Nigerian, in my neighborhood would make my head explode. Much like having a Mosque next door. I respect people's right to their religion, but when the majority of criminal/terrorist activity comes from an identifiable source, doesn't it make sense to try to prevent that source from moving into the neighborhood?

 

[traveller]

PG is littered with 1/2 built megachurches. You would think that there are sites available that dont require well and septic.
As for the traffic mess, that is a problem around every large babtist church.

 

[smokey]

There's worse things there that cause traffic than churches

 

[pbharvey]

Maryland has something like the second largest number of Nigerian immigrants. If not #2, its up near the top.

 

[Mark75H]

As for the traffic mess, that is a problem around every large babtist church.

Thinking about 450 West of MD3, the Catholic church's parking lot may not be any smaller. Its a very well attended church; MDS probably has more than one member who attends there.

 

[radial]

Nigeria isn't a country. It's an ongoing criminal conspiracy headquartered on the continent of Africa.

 

[aray]

Not to be contrarian but 299 parking spots for a church does not seem like a lot to me. The article above referenced the Renaissance festival; there are already two large churches on Crownsville Road within a mile of the festival that I suspect have parking that exceeds that capacity already. Indeed the Renaissance festival itself is much more of a pain to me every year. I live in the area and it chokes the entire area road network when it is in session.

Mind you I'm not a fan of the church for other reasons but exfiltrating 299 cars over perhaps a 45 minute period once a week to me doesn't seem like the end of the world.

 

[MigraineMan]

Mind you I'm not a fan of the church for other reasons but exfiltrating 299 cars over perhaps a 45 minute period once a week to me doesn't seem like the end of the world.

I think your assumption is optimistic. Most churches have more than one service per week. The one OP-linked story indicated the building has classrooms and offices in addition to the worship space, so if they're planning to run a school in addition to the church, you're looking at disruptions all week long.

And guys in reflective vests won't "fix" a traffic capacity problem ... that's just a sparkly band-aid.

It does sound fishy that they're using parking spaces to justify facility capacity. "300 cars with 4 people each means we can set capacity at 1200 people. If we designate 20 spaces for buses ("spaces" are "spaces" right?) we lose 80 but gain (20*45)=900!" Then when the participants don't do the max-carpool thing, they can cry about unexpected demand/use and petition to expand beyond the original permit (without all that pesky oversight and review, because they're simply modifying an established facility.)

[ZappBrannigan]
I've witnessed the construction game played via incrementalism, and that's what my gut says this is.
[/ZappBrannigan]

 

[Jim12]

I'm glad to see that the deceased Nigerian uncle's vast fortune was finally released by the National Bank of Nigeria and sent here to its rightful heirs and legatees, who are using it to build this wonderful church.

I hope it was an MDS member who fronted the $25,000 along with his social security number and bank account information, in return for a substantial portion of the estate.

 

[adit]

Not to be contrarian but 299 parking spots for a church does not seem like a lot to me. The article above referenced the Renaissance festival; there are already two large churches on Crownsville Road within a mile of the festival that I suspect have parking that exceeds that capacity already. Indeed the Renaissance festival itself is much more of a pain to me every year. I live in the area and it chokes the entire area road network when it is in session.

Mind you I'm not a fan of the church for other reasons but exfiltrating 299 cars over perhaps a 45 minute period once a week to me doesn't seem like the end of the world.

The other 400 cars will park in the grass....

 

[engineerbrian]

The other 400 cars will park in the grass....

Thats what i was thinking too. Theres a reason they are going with 299 cars and not 300 on paper just as Rack & Roll mentioned above.

I'm curious to see how many members the church currently has

 

[Boom Boom]

Mind you I'm not a fan of the church for other reasons but exfiltrating 299 cars over perhaps a 45 minute period once a week to me doesn't seem like the end of the world.

Think about it from a Nigerian scam point of view. Make 299 tight parking spots. Add access from the main parking lot to a large open field or gravel area for hundreds more vehicles. Now consider 600-1000 vehicles, interfering with traffic flow for hours each weekend.

The other 400 cars will park in the grass....

Missed your post before I posted. Exactly.


Then within a year of building the place, after it's obvious a well and septic are overloaded, pressure (maybe bribe) the county to cover the cost of public water and sewer at the expense of county taxpayers.

An asshat developer tried something similar just outside the town of Mount Airy in Carroll County the better part of 10 years ago. The county and town weren't fooled and asked tons of pointed questions. It eventually became obvious the developer either expected the county to cover road, water, and sewer costs or for Mount Airy to annex the land and cover the costs. The county and town told the developer to pound sand and the land sits empty.

 

[mvee]

Apparently the Nigerian church has hired Delegate Neil Parrott from hagestown to help grease this through somehow. Me Parrott apparently a traffic engineer.