MARIETTA - Tonight the Marietta City Council will once again take up a zoning request by a church near Kennestone Hospital that wants to sell its property to a mosque.

The council tabled the issue at its Dec. 10 meeting to allow for more community input.

Members of Back to the Bible Church, at 601 Tower Road, just opposite the railroad tracks from the hospital have requested a special land-use permit.

Members of the Masjid Al Hedaya mosque want to buy the 15,242-square-foot church and its 5.5 acres, but not without the special permit, which would allow them to build an addition to the northeast wall of the building, and add a playground between the building and Tower Road; a basketball court; and a fence along Tower Road, said attorney Richard Calhoun, who represents both the church and the mosque.

Masjid Al Hedaya now meets at 1016 Powder Springs Street.

The property's religious use is grandfathered in to city ordinances set in 2004, but the property could not be altered without the permit, city officials said.

At least three city council members, and some neighbors, wonder exactly how the mosque leaders want to change the property. Council members Holly Walquist, Van Pearlberg and the Rev. Anthony Coleman all say the mosque could move into the church now, if members wished.

Kathy Kilgore, who lives in The Oaks subdivision located to the southwest of the church property, said: "No one knows what 'special land use' is." She fears the permit would essentially be a blank check for the mosque to develop the property in any way.

"For some weird reason, they will not agree to purchase the existing structure and use it as a place of worship. This would have been able to be done very easily and they would have certainly been welcomed as neighbors," Kilgore said.

"The city and all surrounding property owners are so vulnerable if this gets approved. The time, money and manpower that has been used on this cryptic request is nauseating," she said.

Calhoun says mosque leaders are hesitant to buy the church without a special land-use permit because the city's zoning ordinances for places of assembly have changed often. Calhoun also said he had met with neighbors in The Oaks subdivision and promised that a wooded area behind the church, which now acts as a buffer, would not be developed for at least five years.

But Kilgore insists that granting a permit would allow for increased traffic on Tower Road, and decrease nearby property values. The request also does not meet the city's parking requirements, she said.Calhoun said mosque members had agreed to use off-duty police officers to control traffic on Fridays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., when as many as 150 people are expected at prayer services.

Complicating the issue is a rezoning request by Richard D. Gardner, a Marietta dentist, who bought one acre of property from the church in September for $228,000, said his attorney, Kevin Moore of Moore Ingram Johnson & Steele.

Gardner wants his property rezoned to allow for a 15,000-square-foot dental office. Moore said Gardner planned to raze a 5,000-square-foot building on the site and build the new office.

City officials say that property sale may have meant the loss of the religious-use zoning for all of the church's property. City attorney Doug Haynie is expected to give his opinion on that tonight.

The council will meet at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 205 Lawrence Street.

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