Led by a Marion County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant as its pastor, a local church moved one step closer this week to realizing its goal of creating a facility at its property in northwest Ocala to aid at-risk children who are removed from unsafe homes in Marion County and are awaiting foster care placement.
On Monday, the Marion County Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6 to 1 to recommend approval of a zoning change request from an Ocala church in the northwest part of the city.
According to county records, the church seeks to change the zoning from general agriculture (A-1) to single-family residential (R-1), in order to facilitate the creation of Isaiah 117 House, a temporary respite care facility for minors entering foster care.
“Instead of trying to build a bigger church so we could have more services, God was very clear that there were people in need,” said Ben Adams, the pastor of the church.
Adams, who is a lieutenant and district commander for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, said he gets to “see it on both sides” of the hats that he wears and that he decided to vet organizations that could use the property for “those who are less fortunate or those in an emergent need.”
“When I came across, Isaiah 117, I started to talk to them, we had an exchange in conversation, some very good discourse,” said Adams, who says he flew to the organization’s headquarters in Tennessee.
Adams said that after touring the operation and getting to see the houses in action, he and his board came to the decision to proceed with a partnership with Isaiah 117.
“This is not something that was on a whim. This was very well-vetted, well-planned, very strategic. I’m a systems person, and I saw their systems. I saw what they do. I saw how they operate…it’s the real deal,” said Adams.
Adams said the houses not only support the children, but the foster families in the community.
“I stand behind this mission,” said Adams.
The lieutenant continued his comments by addressing the property’s reverter clause, which is a provision that allows the property to automatically return to the original owner if certain conditions are not met.
According to Adams, his church received confirmation from the Marion Baptist Association that they are waiving their claim to the clause. Further, he said the Florida Baptist Convention said it would also waive the claim to the one acre that they are proposing to donate. The church site is ten acres in total.
“They want to reserve the claim to the other nine acres, which I fully, 100% support. So if I tried to sell this off…or if somebody else were to do it, they would be able to stop that,” said Adams.
He went on to say that Isaiah House would not be able to sell the property, and that its deed would have a reverter clause as well.
“As far as the Isaiah 117 house, they’re not going to be able to just sell that property because they will have a reverter clause in that deed that we signed over to them that says that if they go under, or anything happens, it will go back to the church” said Adams.
Adams closed his remarks with an impassioned plea, saying he wants his church to stand as a “light of this community forever.”
“I believe in what I do, and I want the legacy of the church to carry on. There will be no houses. I don’t want a neighborhood,” said Adams in reference to concerns of potential development at the site. “Right now, we have 15 to 20 children on any given day, that nobody wants, at our church. They cannot be placed through the system of care into a foster home…so we give them a space to go and we feed them.”
Shortly after Adams’ remarks, Kay Kimbrough, who is the daughter of the original owners of the property (Paul and Becky Kimbrough), expressed her concerns with the request, saying that it was her parents’ desire as founding members of the church to keep the property undivided.
Kimbrough said her family’s objection was not with the charity itself, but rather, the intent to “break up” the land into multiple parcels.
“The application states the intent is to divide and create a 2-lot plat and to convey ownership of one of these parcels to another entity. When the land was conveyed to the church, we took advice from several experienced pastors and worked alongside the Florida Baptist Convention leadership to write a deed that included a reverter clause to entrust that these 10 acres would always and forever remain a church for this community,” said Kimbrough.
According to Kimbrough, the church’s reverter clause has already been enacted twice over the past two decades.
“So we know that it works,” said Kimbrough.
“It is important that the entire 10 acres remain intact and under one ownership for the use and the benefit of the membership of the church for its own future growth,” said Kimbrough. “So we ask that the zoning request be denied.”
When asked by the commission about the legal implications of the reverter clause, and whether her family had a legal document supporting the claim, Kimbrough said that the Florida Baptist Convention confirmed last week that they had not released the reverter clause in any way.
“We are not interested in seeing the church property split up for other purposes. We are not against this charity. I’m very charity-minded, our family is very charity-minded,” said Kimbrough, who lives in Tampa. “My heart is for ministry. But I know that my family’s donation of this parcel was for a time such as this. That the community is booming and growing, and it’s not a time to divide it up.”
Isaiah 117 Houses are single-family, residential dwellings that provide a place for displaced children who are preparing to enter foster care. They function as a community resource that aids the United States Department of Social Services.
The new facility will aim to reduce the “trauma experienced by children during the transition into foster care” by providing a “comfortable and supportive environment,” according to the organization’s website.
The houses are not regulated by the state and are run by “trauma-trained volunteers and Isaiah 117 House staff.”
For more information on the organization, or to lend your support, visit the Isaiah 117 House of Marion County online.
Now that the church has received a preliminary recommendation, it will present its rezoning request to the Marion County Board of County Commissioners for final approval during one of the board’s upcoming meetings in February.
UPDATE: After publication, certain details of this story were removed at the request of the church and Isaiah 117 House.
