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On June 18, Clearwater, Florida’s City Council voted 3 to 2 (1) to approve a plan that will allow the Church of Scientology to take control of a section of South Garden Avenue — a stretch of the downtown street that is already surrounded by church-owned properties.
The City Council meeting drew a crowd of hundreds indoors, with around 2,000 more people waiting outside of the library where the meeting was held.
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With their winning vote, The Church of Scientology plans to use the newly-acquired space to build L. Ron Hubbard Hall. This new venue hall will expand the church’s downtown campus.
Many Clearwater residents are upset by this prospect, with opponents arguing that the city is giving up valuable public land. According to the Wall Street Journal (2), “residents and officials blame the church and its parishioners for buying properties and keeping them vacant.”
A volunteer group called Save The Garden (3) created a petition to put a measure on the Clearwater ballot to require voter approval before the city transfers public rights-of-way downtown to The Church of Scientology. The petition got 8,000 signatures, and the City Clerk rejected thousands of them (4).
Moneywise reached out to Save The Garden for comment but has not heard back.
How it began
This is not the first time tension has risen between the Church of Scientology and opposing Clearwater residents.
The church began obtaining properties in 1975 (5), quickly creating a major headquarters. A headline for the Clearwater Sun during (6) this time read: ”Scientologists plot city takeover.”
Additionally, the St. Petersburg Times (7) published a story that exposed some of the criminal wrongdoings of the Church of Scientology — and even won a Pulitzer Prize. While residents may have accepted their fate, it was not without contempt.
As locals questioned the church’s expansion downtown, a city-commissioned Urban Land Institute study found the church was behaving similarly to most large institutional urban landowners, Wall Street Journal (2) reports.
The church continued to take over properties downtown and in surrounding blocks for decades. In 2017 companies controlled by church members began rapidly buying retail property, doubling the church’s footprint in less than three years and spending $103 million, according to The Tampa Bay Times (8).
City leaders said they didn’t know the full extent of these purchases until they were shown maps created by the Tampa Bay Times (8) that detail the takeover.
Even now, many of these properties (2) are either under construction or vacant, putting a ghostly shadow on Clearwater’s beloved downtown core.
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What’s to come for Clearwater residents
The church initially applied to purchase South Garden Avenue in 2024, but ended up withdrawing the application after a resident group counterproposed (2) to buy it as a memorial to Clearwater’s Black history.
Now that they have refiled and won the City Council vote, what is to come for Clearwater? It’s safe to say that the opposition won’t give up their downtown core without a fight.
Save The Garden has filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. According to Fox Tampa Bay (1), the group’s founder, Brooks Gibbs, says the legal battle’s focus is who owns the land underneath South Garden Avenue.
“Clearwater owns the land underneath the road and Scientology disagrees,” he said, “That needs to be adjudicated with a court.”
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Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
Fox 13 News (1); The Wall Street Journal (2); Save The Garden (3); ACLU Florida (4); Pulitzer Prize (5), (7); Internet Archive (6); Tampa Bay Times (8)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
