The Church and Land Use Regs

Oregon legislators are trying to pass a bill that would exempt churches, or other places of worship, from most of the land use laws that inhibit others from developing land as they see fit. I assume we are talking about Republican legislators here.

Republican Rep. Mac Sumner of Molalla introduced the bill to give greater flexibility to churches that want to build new churches for expanding congregations. Sumner is an elder at the Molalla Christian Church, which wants to build a new church on 10 acres of land zoned for exclusive farm use near Molalla.

Critics said the bill goes much too far and would allow religious groups to put various facilities on any property they own, without any regard for land-use planning rules.

Roguepundit has some words on this, but I'd like to chime in too. I agree with Rogue-man that the bill is a bit too broad, and even Sumner said that the bill needed work before bringing it before the Senate. This bill has been in and out of committees for a while, why does it still need narrowing? It's pretty general right now. You can read it here.
Considering the makeup of the Senate, I'm sure this bill will not pass as worded.
I understand the frustration that churches have when they want to expand, but are having problems with that because of existing land use regulations. My church is in the city, and would love to convert one of it's rental properties into more parking, but since that takes tax dollars away from the city (as the house is considered a private residence and taxable) we encounter lots of resistance.
But it seems like overkill to propose a bill that exempts churches from all land use planning entirely. I don't think that all land use regulations should be bypassed in the name of religious freedom.
Rogue:

We need to strike a happy medium when it comes to where we site a number of types of religious facilities. Some churches are like auditoriums or convention centers when it comes to factors like size, traffic considerations, noise production, etc. The poor siting of such facilities can have a number of adverse consequences.

I agree. It's not going to serve the religious community well if we add yet another point of contention with the public. I think that Churches can and will find ways to expand and grow without embittering the public, more specifically the left side of the political spectrum, any more than they already do. If you think you need to accomplish expansion by battling the political system instead of trusting that God will create the opportunities for growth without the battle, then perhaps we need to check our faith meter.
The federal law passed in 2000 doesn't seem to be helping churches overcome the states strict land use laws either.

Under the U.S. Religious Land use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, local jurisdictions cannot impose land-use restrictions that place a "substantial burden" on churches.
The Oregon Supreme Court said West Linn's denial of the church's request did not amount to a substantial burden, even though it created "several adverse consequences for the church's effort to build a meeting house." The court said any hardship likely would be "relatively short-lived."

Obviously there are some land use issues that Churches shouldn't have to fight, on a case by case basis I'm sure that some churches could be allowed to expand. One example might be a suburban church who wants to expand onto land zoned as farm land, even thought the land in question is not arable.
An opposite example, though, would be a church wanting to expand in a solid urban neighborhood, but the local noise and disturbance ordinances say that they can't. I don't think that churches can deny that the larger they get, the more activity they generate, even during the week. Local ordinances put in place to control the amount of activity allowed in neighborhoods include church activities too. I'm not sure why churches should be excluded from this sort of zoning and law.