THE CHURCH OF

JESUS CHRISTOF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

4 June 2015

DIRECTOR FOR TEMPORAL AFFAIRS50 East North Temple StreetSalt Lake City, Utah 84150-0304Phone: 1-801-240-6266

Billings Montana Planning Division2825 3rd Avenue North 4th FloorBillings, Montana 59101

We are grateful for the time and effort that has been expended by Billings City Officials, Planning and Zoningstaff, members of the Zoning Commission and City Council, regarding special review application #926 projectNumber: 15-053.

As you are aware, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints applied for special review of a churchmeetinghouse project on property it owns in the Rim Point Subdivision. This has been our preferred locationsince it is in very close proximity to our temple in this same neighborhood, which is consistent with our commonpractice to have a meetinghouse adjoining a temple.As part of our due diligence in our site selection process, we contacted city officials to see if this could be anacceptable site. We were assured that there was nothing from the history of our temple project or in currentzoning ordinances that would preclude this from being successfully permitted through the standard permit reviewprocess. Our due diligence also included a careful review of official minutes related to the hearings andapprovals for the construction of our temple. Based on our findings in this due diligence research, we concludedthat the best place for a meetinghouse to meet the needs of our members was on this Rim Point site.

During the public hearing on 5 May 2015, neighbors raised a concern that there had been commitments made in1997 during the temple permitting process that property adjacent to the temple would be exclusively used forresidential housing. Based on those concerns, we have now gone back through the materials presented in thetemple permitting process and visited with others involved in the temple project nearly twenty years ago.Although we can find nothing stated formally, we learned that there were verbal statements made that noadditional religious facilities would be constructed on the remaining 46 residential lots in the Rirn PointSubdivision.

Latter-day Saints strive to live with integrity and we feel it is right to acknowledge the concern of our neighborsbased on their interpretation of our information that was not clearly conveyed at the time. For this reason, theChurch would like to respectfully withdraw its application for special use permit #926, and to cancel ourappointment on June 22, 2015 for a public hearing with the Billings City Council on this matter.

We will still need an additional meetinghouse in Billings in order to accommodate the growing number of faithfulLatter-day Saints in the community. We will be grateful to work with you in the future as we search for anothersuitable site and seek the required permits.

J. Rftberto Hernandez^ Director for Temporal Affairs

Idaho and North America Central Areas