History

From the Beginning

Started in 2008, All Peoples Church is a vibrant, multi-ethnic and multi-generational church located in the heart of San Diego. We are called to be a people devoted to Jesus who live with the purpose of transforming lives to bless San Diego and planting churches to transform nations.

For several years, our church met on Sundays in various schools across town, and in 2015, we began to lease office space at 5555 University Avenue. By 2017, we had outgrown this space and hosted many services each weekend to serve those wanting to attend All Peoples.

Given the need to find a new location to meet the space needs of our congregation, the church’s leaders chose to pursue the construction of a church and was able to secure a suitable piece of developable land at 5555 College Avenue at the intersection of College Avenue and the 8 Freeway.  The location was ideal, given the central location for church members.  The surrounding community itself also had numerous other houses of worship on similarly zoned land in and around the community demonstrating that church use was viable.

The church then retained an expert team of land use experts and environmental consultants to prepare a development plan for the site.  This team included some of the best technical subject matter experts to analyze every detail to ensure the project would work and not impact the surrounding community.  Every aspect was exhaustively analyzed including noise, visual, biological and traffic. 

Starting in summer of 2018, the church embarked on a public engagement effort to further the pursuit of this new home for our congregation.  The church engaged in multiple meetings over 3 years with our Del Cerro neighbors and greater Navajo community, forming relationship and receiving input for project updates.

The initial tone of these meetings was positive and constructive, but unfortunately that changed when a different group of residents formed to block the project. The opponents harassed one group, the Del Cerro Action Committee, out of existence, and forced out favorably disposed members of the Navajo Community Planners Committee. As a result, the resulting feedback was one of insult, false accusation and a clear intent to discriminate against a church use.

The church continued with the city's process despite this harassment and the numerous false and defamatory accusations. These accusations even extended to harassment of project team members.

Six years later, after receiving the City’s professional staff support, the project went to the San Diego Planning Commission and garnered a unanimous vote in favor in late 2023.  During this hearing, numerous Planning Commissioners lauded the project and noted how it would improve the existing conditions on College Avenue, making it safer, and saying that it was the right use for this location.

Nevertheless, in January 2024, after a half-day long hearing, the church project was denied on a split vote by the San Diego City Council.  The justification was a distortion of the City’s rules and even in conflict with the City Attorney’s own admonition about federal protections over religious institution discrimination.  It was also in conflict with the City’s own professional staff and procedures. 

As a result of this inappropriate denial, which the church believes is in violation of federal law, the church has decided to challenge the denial in Federal Court.  In a similar case, Our Lady of Peace Academy in San Diego received a favorable judgment after taking legal action for religious discrimination in a land use decision with the City of San Diego. All Peoples is hopeful that a similar outcome will come from this process.