Council prohibits church at Cassadaga - News about religious cults and sects

DELAND -- A group of Christian evangelists will have to go to court to build a church near the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp.

The County Council voted 4-3 Thursday to stop the Rev. John Ferro from building a church on the property he owns near the heart of the small town of spiritualists, psychics and others who have banded together to keep the church out.

Council member Jim Ward said he did not approve of the church's plan because it may pose environmental hazards to surrounding scrub-jay habitats and possibly ruin the rural area that the county designated as a scenic corridor.

Erik Stanley, Ferro's attorney, said he would file suit to challenge the decision. He said the council turned a blind eye to laws that guarantee religious freedom and give zoning exceptions to churches.

He said the council's reasons for denying the church are unjustified.

"You need something more than just neighbor opposition," said Stanley of the Liberty Counsel, a religious civil-liberties organization in Orlando.

For about an hour, the council heard testimony against the church from residents and questioned Ferro about the intentions of his evangelical group and its self-declared mission to minister to adult and juvenile inmates.

Ferro asked the council to overturn the decision made in February by the county's Planning and Land Development Regulation Commission, which denied his request for the special exception to build the church. That two-acre site on Cassadaga and Matanzas roads is zoned for agricultural use.

"We believe our lord Jesus Christ directed us to the purchase of this property," Ferro said.

Council member Big John asked Ferro how he knew Jesus directed him to do that.

Ferro said his congregation of about 14 people engaged in a week of prayer and fasting before putting a contract on the property.

"I did not know that God was a Realtor," said George Tattrie, who is not a spiritualist but lives near Ferro's property and opposes the church's plans.

He said one of his primary concerns is the church's work with inmates and people recently released from jail.

"We try to keep people like this out of our community," he said.

Spiritualist camp president Don Zanghi told the council he feared the church group would be intrusive to the unincorporated community.

In 1999 camp members lodged police complaints after they said the church members disrupted the spiritualists' Sunday services with loudspeakers, urging them to turn to Christianity.
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