What residents should know about church property rezoning

What residents should know about church property rezoning

Published on September 28, 2026

There has been a significant amount of discussion and misinformation circulating about the City's required rezoning of certain church-owned properties. We want residents to have the facts.

The City is not requiring any church to build housing, sell its property or change how it currently uses its property.

There are no current housing projects proposed for these church sites, and the City is not aware of any plans by the property owners or developers to build housing on them.

The rezoning also does not trigger development. Whether housing is ever built on church-owned property remains a decision for the property owner.

In fact, under current state law, a qualifying church that wants to build affordable housing on its property has the ability to do so, regardless of this rezoning action. The City's action does not create that right, and it does not force a church to use it.

So why is the City rezoning these properties?

The State of California is requiring the City to do so as part of Lakewood's state-mandated Housing Element. The state has indicated that failure to complete the required rezoning could put the City's Housing Element compliance at risk. That could bring serious consequences for Lakewood, including financial penalties and a substantial loss of the City's ability to apply its own local zoning and land-use rules to future housing development, meaning developers could build essentially whatever they want with very little City input.

In other words, the City is taking this required action in order to preserve as much local control as possible, not to force development on church properties.

The most important facts are straightforward:

• No church is being required to build housing.
• No housing project is currently proposed on these sites.
• Rezoning does not force a property owner to develop.
• A church that does not want housing on its property will not be required by this action to build it.
• The rezoning is being required by the state as part of Lakewood's Housing Element obligations.

We understand why residents have questions, especially when information online can be incomplete or misleading. We encourage residents to rely on official City information for the facts about this process, and any questions can be directed to our Community Development department.

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