Is this an "E" occupancy because it is not on the same parcel as the religious facility?

[JPohling]

I have a project for a massive church facility here in California. The intent of the project is to create a classroom building for kindergarten and transitional kindergarten. No day care. We have chosen to use a code exception and we are getting a bit of push back. This is an existing building owned by the church and we will just be doing interior improvements.

2019 CBC section 305.1 Accessory to places of religious worship. Religious education rooms and religious auditoriums which are accessory to places of worship in accordance with section 303.1.4 and have occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space, shall be classified as Group A-3 occupancies.
The plan reviewer has provided this interpretation/correction:

Per Building Official: Upon review of your plans, per CBC 305.2.1 Within Places of Religious Worship - Worship Rooms and spaces within places
of religious worship providing such day care during religious functions shall be classified as part of the primary occupancy where not licensed
for day-care purposes by the Department of Social Services.

Interpretation: This building on a different parcel would not qualify as “within places of religious worship”

This project has nothing to do with day care during religious functions. So that is easily explained. But the "interpretation" that this building is on a "different parcel" so it would not qualify as being "within places of religious worship" is the problem, but does not seem like it should be. This church campus is situated on probably 10 city blocks worth of various buildings and facilities. This parcel/building is immediately adjacent to the campus and next door to a 400+ car church overflow parking lot.

I do not buy that because it is a different parcel that the code exception would not be valid. What do you think?

 

[my250r11]

Maybe not exactly Building Code. Most Zoning won't allow for it to be any accessory.

2019 CBC section 305.1 Accessory to places of religious worship. Religious education rooms and religious auditoriums which are accessory to places of worship in accordance with section 303.1.4 and have occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space, shall be classified as Group A-3 occupancies.

My take on this is ROOMS & AUDITORIUMS would be in the place of worship not a completely different building let alone a different lot. JMHO

 

[JPohling]

The entire mega campus is a "place of worship" The entire campus is a series of parcels that have been developed over time. This is an education building that is accessory to a place of worship.

 

[steveray]

So does the "accessory" space/ building have an OL <100?

And what is the aversion to the E use?

Merge the lots and the issue would go away then....

 

[e hilton]

Is the title for all the parcels under the same name? Are the parcels separated by city streets, thus they could not be merged into one large parcel?

 

[JPohling]

All of the parcels are owned by the church. There is a city street that bisects the campus. There are parcels in every direction and on both sides of the street. I am guessing there are 25 acres of church facilities and a shuttle bus for visitors. MASSIVE The facility has an occupant load of 350 total. There are 6 classrooms some just under 50 occupants and some just over 50 occupants @ 1/15 A3, balance is admin areas. We can make it work as an "E" with some adjustments, but the code is very specific.

2019 CBC section 305.1 Accessory to places of religious worship. Religious education rooms and religious auditoriums which are accessory to places of worship in accordance with section 303.1.4 and have occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space, shall be classified as Group A-3 occupancies.

303.1.4 accessory religious educational rooms and religious auditoriums with occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space are not considered separate occupancies.

 

[ccollings]

if this is a separate building why can't it be "E" use group without trying to classify it as accessory use? is the entire building used for education or only part? accessory use is when the primary use of the "building" is religious services. zoning may care, but building code doesn't care that it's part of a campus.

 

[Yikes]

On a previous project, it was explained to me that the distinction between an E classroom and an A-3 religious accessory goes back to a cultural understanding of how these spaces are used relative to life-safety.

In a classroom (such as at a public school), one teacher is responsible for the life safety of minors for 6+ hours a day. The parents are nowhere nearby.
At what we used to call "Sunday School", it was traditionally the case that the parents were often attending a church service in a sanctuary while the children went into nearby sunday school classrooms. In event of emergency, the parents we close enough that if necessary they could assist in the evacuation of their kids. Also, E occupancies previously often 6' wide corridors, which may have been based on assumptions of school lockers flanking the corridor, or of kids being organized in lines within the corridor. Those function may not occur in a Sunday School corridor.

The presence of a parcel line should be irrelevant to the life safety issues. True, your church campus may be much larger than originally envisioned in 305.1, but mega-churches these days also often utilize technology for tracking kids and their parents, and texting the parents when they need immediate assistance.

Lastly, I'm guessing that a church that big has some kind of planning department case, such as a CUP, that threats the various parcels as one campus for purposes of studying and approving parking, circulation, etc. Although a unified planning approval does not compel the building official to treat it all as one property, it does bolster your argument somewhat.

 

[ADAguy]

Nice clarification Yikes. Kids safety should be foremost, cost is minimal unless they are trying to avoid fencing, aides and rr's.

 

[Tim Mailloux]

if I understand this correctly, this classroom bulding is a seperate and distinct building on a church campus. As it is a seperate building I am not sure how it could be considered an accessory occupancy to a use group in a complete different building on a different parcel of land.

The OP also states that this building will contain Pre-K and K classrooms, are these classrooms used only for Sunday school or are they occupied as school classrooms Monday thru Friday during normal school hours?If the later I don't see how you get around classifying this as an E occupancy.

 

[JPohling]

Just an update. The church has an approved master plan for their grounds of 60+ acres. It is comprised of 4 parcels. If the religious education building was on the same parcel as the church or we combined parcels they would be fine with the A-3, but that is a long process and we can easily comply with the E occupancy, so that is how we are proceeding.

 

[Yikes]

Just an update. The church has an approved master plan for their grounds of 60+ acres. It is comprised of 4 parcels. If the religious education building was on the same parcel as the church or we combined parcels they would be fine with the A-3, but that is a long process and we can easily comply with the E occupancy, so that is how we are proceeding.

Years ago I worked on a “Sunday School" building that was on a different parcel, across the street from the church sanctuary. The city wanted to call it an “E” occupancy, and the church took a go-along-to-get-along approach. This all sounded fine until some local political blogger decided the “E” on the permit application meant the church must be building a Monday-Friday, K-12 school. (The community had secularized over the years to the point where the opponents did not even know what the term "Sunday School" meant.)
This stirred up the neighbors who were concerned their streets would get clogged 2x / day with parents picking up and dropping off kids to school. It caused all kinds of baseless political problems with councilpersons getting irate calls about approving an “E” school without doing traffic studies.

The "E" designation initially sounded like a safer approach, but it was loaded with unintended consequences.

 

[steveray]

Traffic stuff should be based on actual usage, not building code use....But I guess once the E gets in there it is harder for zoning to claw back? Also, not my problem....

 

[Paul Sweet]

The odd thing is that way back in BOCA days churches and schools were both A-4! I think it got changed sometime in the 1980s.

 

[Yikes]

Traffic stuff should be based on actual usage, not building code use....But I guess once the E gets in there it is harder for zoning to claw back? Also, not my problem....

Right. It's just that community agitators with too much time on their hands looked at the "E" designation in the building code classification, and claimed that the church was trying to sneak in a conventional "weekday" private school, even though they only said they just wanted an accessory "Sunday School".
The agitators further claimed that the city officials must be in cahoots with the church, because why else would the building official label it an "E" use if it's not a weekday school?
The reality was that church would've happily accepted the usual A-3 religious accessory classification in the building code, but it was the plan checker who wanted to call it "E".