LONGMONT, Colo. -- Longmont is going to annex the land needed to expand a church.

Longmont City Council members brought an end to a bitter, protracted war over a Christian church's plans to expand. Tuesday night at a city council meeting, members voted six to one in favor of the annexation.

"It's not a simple issue," City Council member Doug Brown said.

The LifeBridge church bought a 313-acre parcel just outside the eastern city limits, near Union reservoir.

It's piece of land that city leaders had hoped to purchase and use as an open space buffer between Longmont and Weld County. But the church bid higher for the land and has been waiting for more than a year and a half for city leaders to decide to annex it.

If Longmont annexes the property, it would then fall within the city limits and the city would provide such services as water, sewer, fire protection and police protection. Being within the city limits would save the church millions of dollars.

"We will make sure that we pay our fair share," said Martin Dickey, chief operating officer for Corporation for Community Christian Connections, the business unit of LifeBridge.

LifeBridge church plans to build a $25 million sports arena and as many as 700 homes on the property.

But many opponents believe that the church, because of its nonprofit status, might try to skirt paying sales taxes and use taxes, which could potentially be worth millions of dollars.

So even though the city would be paying for services, city leaders fear that Longmont wouldn't be getting much tax money in return.

However, because the church owns the land, the church can still develop it without the city, potentially changing the proposal they've offered so far by trying to get Weld County to annex the land.

"And it could be 3,000 to 4,000 homes," said Brown.

Brown even thinks some of the opposition to the development is political. There are Longmont liberals who don't want what they perceive to be a conservative, Christian church in their city, he said.

LifeBridge is not worried.

"We embrace that. We respect people having different opinions. We'll just continue to serve in this community as we have over the past 100 years," Dickey said.

The City Council started discussing the issue in December.

"Here it is August. Yes, I think it's time to start focusing on other city business, " said Karen Benker, a City Council member and opponent of the annexation.

"I think it's time it came to an end. It's been painful," Brown said.