Title:منطقه بندی دین و دادگاه ها: مروری بر قانون RLUIPA CM

۲۰۱۱-۰۱-۲۷ ارائه کننده: دانیل پی. دالتون مقررات استفاده از زمین آمیخته با مذهب یک مفهوم برنامه ریزی دشوار برای درک است، به ویژه در پرتو قانون استفاده از زمین مذهبی و افراد نهادینه شده (RLUIPA). از طریق این جلسه، شرکت کنندگان یاد خواهند گرفت که RLUIPA چیست. نحوه رسیدگی به مسائل دینی استفاده از زمین و مزایای RLUIPA را برای جامعه درک کنید.

قسمتي از متن فيلم: Hello my name is Cody price and I just want to welcome everyone it is now one o’clock so we begin our presentation shortly today on january 27th we will have our presentation on religion zoning and the courts and overview of RLUIPA given by Dan Dalton for help during

Today’s webcast please feel free to type your questions on the chat box found in the webinar tool bar to the right of your screen or call one eight hundred 2636 3174 content questions please feel free to type those in the questions box and we’ll be able to answer those at the

End of the presentation during the question-and-answer session here is a list of our participating chapters divisions University I would like to send a personal thank you to the Michigan Chapter for sponsoring today’s webcast so in 2011 we began to change it start on january first we’re all webcast

Will be listed underneath the Ohio Chapter so you will also be able to see that on the website to register for these webcasts that will be listed as either CM approved or if they don’t have anything beside their webcast title as of right now it has been submitted and

It’s just waiting on approval all those webcasts are also underneath a new rating system where they can be rated as either an introductory advanced in a live session and you can find more details about that on the website our next webcast will be on februari first with planning with social media tool or

Trauma I want to make a few pointers to four new webcasts that were recently added one on februari 17th or planning for an aging population sebra wary 23rd developing age ageing friendly communities and on March 11th urban retail so these webcasts were recently added so if you’re interested in these

Please go to ww utah APA org webcast and select your webcast of choice and also at that web cache you will find a complete listing for the 2011 webcast series after the presentation you will be able to log your team credits so to do so you’ll

Just go to ww planning org slash p.m. select activities by day and in select today’s date friday jan thursday january 27th sorry about that and then select religion zoning and the court an overview of RLUIPA and we are recording today’s session and so after today’s

Session you’ll be able to find a PDF in a video recording i’m located at ww utah APA org past webcast HTM and then this should be up over the weekend um I will be going over those details again at the end of the presentation so if you didn’t

Catch it now you’ll be able to catch it then so now at this time I would now like to introduce ami jordan will be introducing our speaker for today good afternoon this is ami jordan i am the education director for the Michigan Chapter of the American Planning Association we’re excited to be

Broadcasting here live from Ann Arbor I am going to be introducing our speakers and Dalton he is the founding member of Dalton’s damage and penciler he has presented for us before in the past and has had rave reviews so I’m excited to have him back for us again here today he

Has been named one of the 25 leaders in the law for 2010 by Michigan lawyers weekly and he represents religious entities and land-use disputes throughout the United States he received his bachelor of arts degree from Western Michigan University and his law degree from the University of Detroit School of

Law dan serves on the Governing Council of the American Bar Association’s state and local government law section the vice chair of the land use section and the chair of the religious Land Use Committee he has a life member of the American Bar Foundation and a member of the american

Planning association and the Michigan Association of planning thank you very much Dan I’m going to go ahead and turn the stage over to you thank you Amy and welcome everyone it’s it’s good to be here about a year or two ago I spoke at the national convention in Minneapolis

On a panel on religious land use and last year spoke to the Michigan Chapter at its annual meeting so it’s a real pleasure to you know to be here today what I’m going to do now said I want to do that is I’m trying to figure out how

To make my screen this a full screen and I can’t do that right now but I have my powerpoint oh so off we go down on the bottom corner there is the little logo um that’s like a fool go up a little bit by the percentage sign on the zoom if

You click OK the one on the left side of the zoom so go over one more right there if you click that then we’ll go full screen back right there yes okay we’re good yes great well good well religious land use and institutionalized persons this isn’t it’s a very interesting topic

And you might be wondering if you haven’t worked on this issue before how do these how did land use and institutionalized persons get together but it has a very long and interesting process and it basically came down to when Congress was looking at the particular issue of freedom of religion

They decided back in two thousand that the easiest way to get there to get a federal statute passed unanimously is to go to two specific issues one was on land use and the other one was institution institutionalized persons in terms of giving them the right to practice religion within prisons but

Hey Dan here I guess yep yeah would you be able to speak up some of our attendees are having trouble hearing you ok not a problem I the question you might have is how do we get here to have this law passed in two thousand and there was passed unanimously and signed

By President Clinton let me kind of give you a little bit background about the law and I’m going to talk a little bit about the constitutional aspects of everything from there I’m going to go into the meat of the law and then I’m going to kind of give you a couple

Different cases that I’ve had you know with within the past year or two where we’ve actually applied the law to different situations and I practice religious land-use work all throughout the United States from California to New York and I can tell you one thing even though you have one statute it’s been

Interpreted differently in every jurisdiction not only in every federal district court Circuit Court and Court of Appeals but also in the state courts as well so the very first thing I think you need to take away from this is before you start analyzing religious land-use matters make sure you talk to

Local counsel or counsel who is familiar with land use and in the loop ax which is the acronym how it’s been interpreted within your jurisdiction by way of background in two thousand congress passed and president clinton klein clinton signed the religious land use in the institutionalized persons act and

I’m going to call it roll oopah and it was designed to provide protection from discrimination for the exercise of religion by incarcerated individuals and those seeking municipal permits or approval in order to exercise their religion this has had a tremendous impact on land use application and litigation throughout the united states

Since 2000 and it certainly is not clear yet whether an appropriate solemn like balance can be developed under the Act to clearly recognize compelling governmental interest in protecting the public health safety and welfare through land use planning in local environmental controls remains elusive at this one time it may depend upon the wisdom

Of each individual court how did we get to this law well we start with the First Amendment in why do we have it it’s because of this the religion clauses the First Amendment in there too there’s the Free Exercise Clause and in the Establishment Clause simultaneously forbid the government from establishing

Religion and from prohibiting it’s free exercise and both of those clauses are looked upon with great admiration and respect by many but despite the universal support for the concept of protecting religion religious controversies make their way into courts in a rich variety of cases from challenges to the requirement of the

Social Security system to attack some the constitutionality of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools religious claims have also been asserted against drug laws laws regulating the operation education into prison systems prohibitions on animal sacrifice military regulations and land use and zoning laws the one I’m starting up it

Just make sure you’re advancing the slides ok you know yes or no so much right foot ok thank you but none of those judges are have been found to be ill-equipped to examine their breath in the extended content of the avowed religion and when courts are asked to

Look at the scope of religion clauses they face really difficult questions so what happened here well through a series of cases beginning back in the 1900s Congress said that you can have with respect to the Free Exercise Clause which is the one that dick courts use when evaluating land use cases with

Respect to that you can’t impose substantial burdens on the free exercise of religion but what does that mean for a substantial burden on free exercise of religion well the evolution of the claw number of different cases and the biggest evolution that occurred with respect to religion in general occurred

In 1963 in a case called sherbert vs. Varner and in that case mrs. with sure it was a seventh-day adventist who lost her job because she refused to work on Saturdays which was the Sabbath of her faith in when she applied for unemployment benefits the court did the

State denied them the Supreme Court and Malaga is this denial to a fine imposed for her sunday worship and held at no showing merely rational relationship to some colorable state interests would suffice in this highly sensitive constitutional area so the court made this test and his test was a regulation

Neutral on its face may in its application nonetheless offend a constitutional requirement for government new tell neutrality if it unduly burdens the free exercise of religion the court must not ignore the danger than an exception from a general obligation of citizenship and religious grounds may run afoul of the exception

Clause but that danger cannot be allowed to prevent any exception no matter how violet maybe took the protection of values promoted by the free right of extras the free exercise of religion so what does that mean what that means is that Congress’s or the courts were

Looking or left with a test that said hey you can’t do something state or a private individual that inhibits an individual from from worshiping the way that they want well this this created kind of a conflict for states and also for further quarters what was it that

Individuals could do or couldn’t do with respect to any point of religious exercise that that would not impede on other free exercise of religion and land use was particularly an issue as well because there was a sense from some people who read the sherbert verses of

Our decision to say wait a minute this is that you can’t do anything to inhibit our religion so I can build wherever I want and other people said no you know there has to be some sort of reasonableness that comes across this way well from 1963 through 1990 there

Was a series of cases that kind of evaluated the sherbert versus Varner test to determine what in what it would be in particular that would look to where the courts would look to and say hey wait a minute here this is a situation that does apply or doesn’t apply to the

Evaluation land use decisions in 1990 the Supreme Court that initiated decision in a case called Employment Division versus Smith and in that case the court said here what we’re going to do is we’re going to say any law that is generally neutral and contact if it’s neutral and contact then you can act

There’s no Free Exercise claim that was a case involving in the Native Americans using a payout in their worship service and it was out of Oregon so after employment versus division versus Smith communities and took the position that hey we’re applying this live neutrally generally to everyone you can’t have a

Religious use here in our town because we’re not going to allow any assembly in our town or we find that religious uses bad in their town because we lose tax base or we’d rather have a Walmart or car dealership in our talent rather than a church because of taxes or we don’t

Like the religion or whatever the case may be in response to that there was a series of cases and Congress looked at the issue and passed a law back in 1993 called their religious freedom and Restoration Act and in that case it was a very broad law that basically

Preempted the Employment Division versus Smith case that case that riff rather Religious Freedom Restoration Act case or law was challenged in the Supreme Court bike he’s called city of boring versus Flores and then the court now case found that riffa violated section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment the enforcement clause because absent from

The statute were any jurisdictional hooks under the Commerce or spending Clause so what happened is is they said you can’t apply riffa to state clients you can only apply to federal claims so Ripper is still good law right now but it’s only with respect to federal land that state land

So Congress went back Gannett and nine and that was in 1997 when city of Warren came out and Congress went back to the drawing board and say how can we really limit this to make this work in the first go-around was a statute called the religious liberty protection and they

Just were natalja and they just couldn’t get the support from the people that they needed to get support to get it passed so then they stripped it down to just land use and institutionalized persons and that’s how in two thousand raluca the law was passed in the law was

Passed unanimously out of all the laws that were in from President Clinton during his term this is one of the very few that the house in the Senate passed unanimously and president clinton signed right away and it was supported by a number of groups from both sides of the

Aisle conservatives and democrats who was ever kennedy was a sponsor and Orrin Hatch was a sponsor two of the most diametrically opposed political individuals in Washington at the time and Harry Reid was a was a sponsor as well so in two thousand you have this unanimous law that passes that protects

Land use so basically what real oopah does is it requires that strict scrutiny be used in free exercise cases involving land use regulations and institutionalized persons so what is the general rule under Rule oopah well raloo / has five different components to it with respect to land use there’s a again

There’s an institutionalized persons section that doesn’t apply but with respect the land you say has five different components and in what it provides under the general rule is what I have on the screen no government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that it that

Imposes a substantial burden on religious religious exercise unless the government demonstrates a compelling governmental interest that is the least restrictive means of furthering that interests well what does that mean well as you can see i piloted a number of different terms in their substantial burden religious exercise compelling governmental interest and

Restrictive means unfortunately Congress decided not to define many of these terms they did define land use regulation the first part of the general rule because the land use regulation is defined to as a zoning or a landmarking law that or application of such law that limits or restricts a claimants user

Development of land if the claimant is a property interest in the regulated land so land use regulation is defined the the court our Congress also defined religious exercise religious exercise is defined is it includes any exercise of religion whether or not compelled by or central to a system of religious belief

But what they didn’t define a substantial burden under the section well what is substantial burden what Congress did is they said in section 2 the statute that substantial burden is to be decided is where the legislative history says that the term is not intended to given to be given any

Broader interpretation than the Supreme Court’s articulation of the concept of substantial burden on religious exercise well what does that really mean well that’s the question it’s been right raised the last 10 years since raloo has been in place right now there are generally four separate tests of what

Substantial burden is and there’s one with the Sixth Circuit or which is my test here in Michigan where they decided not to create a test they just said this is this is kind of like the this is kind of what we think it may mean but but

It’s very difficult to determine what it is because there is no specific test on this ground in one test of the substantial burden the Sixth Circuit the court found that you know if we give a certain series of factors on religious pressure with with respect to this case

Then you would have a substantial bird meaning substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and divide light his beliefs another test under the Seventh Circuit which is like the Chicago area what that is is that a land use regulation that imposes a substantial burden on religious exercise

Is one that necessarily bears direct primary and fundamental responsibility for rendering religious exercise including the use of real property for the purpose thereof within the regulated jurisdictions generally effectively impractical but then two years later after deciding this this case the Seventh Circuit came back and said no substantial burden has this it’s the

Delay uncertainty in expense that constitutes a substantial burden another another test came out of the Ninth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit potential burden is an imposition and religious exercise that imposes a significantly great restriction or onus upon such exercise and the Eleventh Circuit said that a substantial burden must be more

Than a mere inconvenience unrealistic religious exercise a substantial learn is a candid significant pressure which directly courses or religious adherence to conform his or her belief accordingly so what does that really mean what that means is is that there is no clear definition of substantial burden going

Back to the first key point if you get involved in a religious land-use matter the very first thing you need to do is look under your state law and your federal law to determine what a substantial burden is because even in Michigan under state courts the state courts has a different definition of

Substantial burden then you would find under the Sixth Circuit law for substantial burden the next thing that needs to be defined is what is a compelling governmental interest well that’s been another thing it’s been very difficult and in these case the one trend that we find with substantial burden and also compelling governmental

Interest is that the facts of the case ultimately control the court’s ruling again like I said in Michigan and what alberta’s is a complete and total exclusion of religious activity within the city so we had a case in front of the Michigan Supreme Court where a church bought piece of property and

Wanting to put in senior housing for members of their church but it would be right on this church property they could walk to church every day the church were then you have part of its ministry taking care of senior citizens the whole nine yards and in that case they were

Denied the use by the local community in that case the Michigan Supreme Court said you know what you can have senior housing anywhere else in a number of different places within the city and because it’s not totally excluded from this city it’s not a substantial burden

If the case would have been litigated in federal court then the test would be does the action of the city or the community play substantial pressure on a claimants that violates religious beliefs are effectively bars the church from using its property and again it’s something that there’s something a

Little bit more than exclusion from its particular piece of property but something less than total exclusion so if there’s somewhere in the middle and that would be where the facts really control the case in the same occurs with the compelling governmental interest well what is a compelling governmental

Interest that is something that again has not been defined by courts unilaterally or in these cases what you can find though when would you look at compelling governmental interest is it a series of cases are out there they tell you what is or with what is not for example diminution of value added

Joining real estate has never been held to be a compelling governmental interest or lack of tax basis has never been found to be compatible interest traffic and congestion concerns have not been found to be compelling governmental interest compelling governmental interest parking issues similarly have not been embraced as compelling the

However there are certain courts have found in different states different have run into different conclusions of course have determined that aesthetic impacts are compelling and some have found that it’s not some have found that the preservation of historic buildings are compelling government interest and others have not they’re it there was

Just a case out of Massachusetts where the Springfield Massachusetts where the Catholic where the diocese wanted to close a church in the heart of town and consolidate its members with another church and sell the building and once that became public knowledge to church the city quickly designated the building

As a historic building in that case the court came down and said it’s not you know the designation of this building is a compelling governmental interest and therefore the the church was precluded from destroying the outside of the building or the inside you know taking it apart or whatever the case may be

Because of that designation the same thing occurred down in in Peoria Illinois I want to say two years ago we’re in that case the church bought an apartment building and they wanted to kind of clear out the apartment building and use it for a family life center and

Family life centers are usually in larger churches and it’s usually a place where there’s a jimmy museum there’s places for families to go like a cooking facility there might be rooms for rent for for like missionaries who come back from overseas or places like that and this apartment building what they need

To do is they were trying to renovate it it wouldn’t work say when I tear down to build a family life center and and once that became known the city quickly designated this historic property and said no you can’t do that and the local district court said it is a compelling

Our own governmental interest to keep the property the way it is in and therefore in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed it as well so again compelling governmental interest artifact driven in many cases such as substantial burden this slide right here just talks a little bit what I’ve talked about

Earlier there are more approaches to substantial burdens of any then there are even on these streams as well and therefore it is very important when you’re looking at this issue to look at your relevant federal district courts and court of appeals as well as your state law as well you might say yourself

Why isn’t the Supreme Court taking up the issue yet well it’s been in front of them most recently there’s a queue side of Colorado called Rocky Mount a church i believe it is versus boulder county and the issue of defining a standard for substantial burden came up at that point

I represented living water church in the Sixth Circuit an appeal to the Supreme Court and again the same issue that was presented as a Supreme Court back in two thousand eight was kitty please define substantial bird and there was a case called Petra versus I think willowbrook

You the Seventh Circuit back in 2005 and that issue also was was teed up right for the Supreme Court to make a decision just tell us what it is and the court hasn’t done it so the issue is out there it’s been raised by a number of folks

It’s just a situation where the courts have have the Supreme Court has decided not to decide what is substantial burden is and these are a little bit a couple more examples here on this slide 8 of situations where courts have found when you can when or what not a conditional

I’m sorry Oh substantial burden has occurred or whether there is a compelling interest of baccarat identity and Denine use there is one clear thing though we can all agree about with substantial burns and that is religious uses are not immune from land use regulation and it’s very clear in the

Act rly but as I noted on the screen does not provide religious institutions with immunity from land use regulations what this means is is that just because you have a church doesn’t mean you can go anywhere in a community and trust me I I the I represent exclusively religious uses right now the

First ten years of my career I represented communities in land-use disputes I know what the argument is that because we’re church were entitled to it but the law is very clear and and it’s an issue that I discussed with my clients in great detail that just

Because we have our lupa it does not mean that it provides a specific immunity or a free pass for our land use regulation the only situation I had which and I’ve never had this before where there was an issue involved with the use of land in the religious nature

Was a case that I just finish up in the Philadelphia area or hopefully we’ll be finishing up soon and that involved a piece of land where my clients purchase and wanted to build a Hindu temple and the Guru from India blessed the land and designated as holy ground and that

Created a number of issues with respect to the case but even with the blessing in the holy ground it still didn’t make it a case that would make it absolutely immune from land use regulation under a lupa well let me let me talk a little briefly about the face of our lupa case

Just to kind of give you an idea of how this applies in different situations and and I know all of you have different cases that you’re working on right now in different situations and I hope this one in one following will give you a little idea of issues that are out there

This is a case on this slide from Carlinville illinois Carlinville is a county seat in illinois in southern Illinois about an hour north of st. Louis and about an hour south of sprinkle Illinois Carlinville Southern Baptist Church is a larger Church they had about 300 to 400 attendees and what

They were presented with was a building that used to be a 60,000 square foot walmart building which you can see in the center years what Walmart did what they’re doing across the United States is that they’re they’re taking older buildings buildings are built in the 60s and 70s and some

Even in the 80s there are 60,000 square foot closing them down and then and then building the Super Walmart usually in the same area between you know 80 and 100 or 120 thousand square foot to a grocery stores to it and what Walmart does and as well as key mart and a

Number of other folks is they have deed restrictions within their within their properties and what they provide is that you cannot use this property for any use that competes with wala walmart and they list all the uses so basically what it does is it limits the use to churches or

Office space well you can’t really convert successfully or I haven’t seen successfully converting a a wall art or kmart standalone 60,000 square foot building to a an office so many across the United States start being converted to churches and the reason why is is there big buildings you can easily

Modify those buildings to a religious use to make a semblance of certain component of parking along with an expansion area that’s available to it when the church grows and in this case there is a joint and the other thing with this case with Walmart especially is that they sell the property very

Beneficially to religious uses because one of their core values is to support local churches as well so my client after this property SAT vacant for about a year and a half I’m sorry not vacant but for sale for about a year and a half contacted walmart i asked if i could buy

It the entrance in negotiations and they bought the land in prior to buying the land the land was zoned for assembly you so they could be there what happens is after they the church entrance negotiations with walmart to buy the land the city became aware of it and a

City quickly responded by rezoning the land to exclude religious assembly but they for whatever reason allowed succulently in other words what they did is they said you can have any assembly you want here you can have a roller rink you can have a movie theater you can have a dance hall you

Can have a funeral home a nursing home whatever you want but you cannot have a religious assembly here which clearly violates her lupa and when the church went to hell what had closed down the land and the city then responded by filing a nuisance suit against the

Church scene hey what you’ve done is you’ve created a nuisance simply because you bought Elena the hidden started construction yet is not in this picture but they said we want to stop you from entering occupying are used in the building so in response what we we did

Is we filed a federal court action in Springfield Illinois and we saw it and we secure a temporary restraining order and what we did is we went to the court we showed the history of raluca we showed what what was happening in this case we went through it in we evaluated

The different types of uses that were permitted and showed the court that they specifically targeted my clients to to get them out of that building and as you can see eight months later the case settled an interesting note out of this case is after we felt soo did the

Temporary restraining order there was a settlement conference and we went to the settlement conference and representatives of the insurance company and the city was there and the Mayor was there and we spent the day and at the end of the day we saw up case we got the

Use we got paid the whole nine yards in all it required was city council approval and that’s very typical in these cases but because members of the council in the mirror there and we were assured that they are on board the case would would be settled it went for city

Council approval the city council approved and then the mayor vetoed the approval went back to federal court for sanctions the whole nine yards at the end of the day we got to use and it’s all good at this point in time the the church is very happy in the community is

Happy as well well there was no real oopah or no substantial / the church would not have won this case simply because the state of the law at that time because at that point in time if it even if Elena’s regulation constitutes a substantial bernal religious exercise is permissible both

It furthers a compelling governmental interest and the least restrictive means and at that point in time it was very difficult under the state law without real oopah to to prevail in the question in our case was how compelling is compelling how in those cases public safety and health are always raised in

Every case stories but mere speculation is never compelling you need specific evidence that a religious use or assembly jeopardizes the city’s stated interest and you have to determine if the religious conduct truly undermines any of the city interest an example of this is a case in that’s pending in the

Ninth Circuit right now out of Arizona of Yuma Arizona and in that case a church bought a JC Penney building that was downtown and in in that situation it was within a historic zone and the City of Yuma had created over a series of years a historic community that kind of

Was right in a particular area and they excluded religious uses in that area they allowed other assemblies but they exclude the religious uses but because they had spent years and years of developing this historic town downtown area that the city said we cannot allow this here and the circuit court agreed

Now that issue is up before the Ninth Circuit right now to determine whether or not that’s compelling but that is one of the cases or one of situations where the city said listen look at all the things that occurred before church bought the land you know we had a tip we

Created a TIF district we collected monies to improve this district we began our improvements of this district we did everything we did to create a downtown historic zone and churches don’t fit here so it’ll be really interesting to see what the Ninth Circuit does reloop up one of her lupus also other

Prongs is his provide that you can a city cannot totally exclude a church from its jurisdiction it’s very common to see that especially in zoning codes were that have been developed years ago and the communities have gone forward and said you know we don’t want any churches in our jurisdiction and there’s

Usually three reasons for that one is loss of tax basis the other is they’d rather have a different use where the church is going or the third one is just pure religious discrimination well Congress provided that you cannot totally exclude a religious assembly from a jurisdiction and in or create

Unreasonable means you know within the terms of of making the of making the use and you can’t provide what’s called under the non-discrimination Act you can’t allow like say one denomination over another in other words you can’t zone for it allow for a Methodist Church but not allow a Catholic Church or vice

Versa those that occurs as well look for whatever reason let’s also talk about another example that we just litigated out of taxes in the central western part of Texas called the house where Jesus Jones this was a Ministry of the church of the open door and what it provided

Was a halfway house in other ways a place where individuals coming out of the Department of Corrections for Texas went and they learn life skills they got jobs and they received religious train the whole nine yards and they lived there for period of six months and and

Then they went on to have productive lives and the house reduces signs had an amazing record of getting people through the program without having any type of I’m sorry but without people going back to prison it was something like eighty percent where I think the typical a

Measure of an individual coming out of prison going back to prison was somewhere around 60 so is just terrific with the program did and they have been in existence for 14 years in a very rural area of accounting and they had no incidence with any neighbors or residences or business and

Since it started they the church of the open door is located in Waco Texas and they became aware of his property in 2006 on a street called Wisconsin Avenue where it was a former nursing home so we had a it had wings at rooms and everything all set up and would be

Perfect for them because the property that the house reduces Giants owned was located about 45 minutes from the church and or all the classes were the life skill classes like a lot of these guys never had jobs or checking accounts or knew how to buy car and that kind of

Stuff or religious training that all occurred at the church so you know hippies folks worked eight to ten hours a day they were busting and hour later did for classes and they were bussed back another hour then had Heather Mills back at the at the house so what they

Thought is we got this property that’s about a mile and a half away it’d be perfect for us located in a pretty rundown area town of the city of Belle Meade which is adjacent to Waco it was zoned appropriate for the use there were some trailer homes there were some

Houses it was kind of a mixture there and it was own industrial which which permitted the use all the building really needed were was paint and minor repairs to get an occupants occupancy permit under the local loss of the building codes well what happened was one of those law of unintended

Consequences for the church the house for Jesus shines contacted the city building inspector and Fire Marshal after buying the property or I’m sorry prior to buying the property and said hey we’re thinking of buying this property for this use are you okay with this and they said sure and the city

Building inspector inspected the property and vies the pastor his name is Esther Ronnie homes how to secure an occupancy permit and the pastor then visited with the fire marshal to review the occupancy required and then they went ahead in the bottling up well just less than 10 days

Later a December 27 2007 a city council member who lived in the general area where this was constantly property was located called the pastor and asked for a meeting to discuss buying the property and this was right after or near when that when they bought the property they

Then it’d be immediately after they buy the property the immediately secure electrical permits to repair electrical issues and begin fixing things like we’re painting and fixing toilets and things like that the church didn’t have a meeting with the city until January because the city essentially administration was essentially shut down

Between Christmas and New Year’s of that year don December 28 2007 the church submitted a deposit for water service and water was turned down by the city however a month later the city turned off the water locked the system removed the meter and made sure that the house

Couldn’t secure water they even went so far as to dig up the pipe that connected the water from the building to the the main water line to make sure that the church couldn’t get water in the building the city manager’s name is scooter Ratcliffe directed the city of

Turning Charlie Olson to create a new zoning ordinance that was solely directed to the house for Jesus shines which they admitted during discovery to basically ban them from the city of El me and it was based on just scooter Radcliffe’s idea that he didn’t want to crowley’s within his to the on Wisconsin

Avenue on january second a sprinkler system company applied to each apply for a permit to put a sprinkler system within the property in the city refused to issue permit violating their own organization own laws when they did so and then the city manager contacted a board member the house where Jesus

Shines married threadgill inquired if the pastor has the authority to buy the building and she in primary by saying you’re never going to occupy this building the city also the church also asked the city hall for permit to install a new air conditioned units and the city refused to issue those permits

So what the church did is a contact of the city manager on inside the city major what is your problem why won’t you allow us to be here and the city manager said the neighbors don’t want you there and they said okay well let’s host a

Program at the church of the open door and we’ll discuss this issue and we’ll see what the issues are today host a meeting our January seventh the entire neighborhood comes no member of City Council appeared at the meeting the city mayor came in said 45 minutes and Len

Left the city mayor then went to a city council meeting and it’s in told the city council that he went to the open door meeting and said that everybody in the neighborhood objected to this use a then wouldn’t allow the password to speak during public comments and during

The agenda item for he allowed the opponents of the house producers shot design I’m sorry to speak but refused any supporter for the house were just shines to speak and then he called an emergency meeting in January fifteenth 2008 at one-thirty p.m. without any notice to the city in and asked the city

To enact an ordinance and so they went to closed session but our literally came out without any debate or input the city council declared an emergency and in an act of the ordinance which effectively closed down the house reduces shines and then the following data city manager constructed all department heads to

Implement the ban of the house reduced shines in the city of bell meet and so the building inspector refused to issue any final permits or inspections for electrical or the work and again we talked about the water by basically he ripped off the head the waterline ripped out to make sure that

The water there we then went to the city to secure what’s called exhaustion of remedies to see if we can get any permits to use for the use for any part of use the billing in any part in any zoning district in the city refused to

Allow this to be placed on the agenda or refused any discussion at all we then threaten to sue initiative demand a fursuit and the city ignored us as well so we filed suit in april two thousand eight who filed suit under the religious land-use acted as well as the free fair

Housing act and asked for a reasonable accommodation to allow its use the city denied the reasonable accommodation and it recommends that the house where Jesus shines could use its property for any other religion see ministry except for the parole ministry in other words he said you can use it but you couldn’t use

It for overnight stay well a few months into this case the tech state of Texas had a similar case in front of it where the state of Texas invalidated ordinance that was identical basically the city belt mean copied that ordinance but instead of the the city conceding in

Sitting down negotiating city refused to repeal the illegal ordinance instead they they enacted a revised ordinance and they didn’t give the anyone notice or an opportunity to be heard they discussed the ordinance in closed session in violation the Open Meetings Act they enacted without public participation they made the ordinance go

Into effect immediately and again it was to ban the house reduces shines from using the religious for using the building for its for its religious purposes so we got to trial in September we went down and got everything ready on the first day of trial the judge made

Some rulings on the different motions and motions in limine and suggested that the city talked to us about settling the case and for the very first time on the day of trial a city did saw that there was a significant amount of damages and a very difficult Road that they would have in

Terms of trying the case because they had the replacement cost of the building the lost opportunity costs potential damages for the individuals who are using the facility and there’s also the claim of punitive damages under the Fair Housing Act under lupa and as a result the city then went to negotiations and

We were able to settle that case that day so it was a case where it was from start to finish took about a year and a half or two two years but we were able to get the matter done so what isn’t so those are really two significant

Substantial burden cases that could just kind of want to raise to you because it’s because it’s an interesting area it’s fact-intensive and those are the ones that you will be working with the most the second area that you’ll be working with the most is what’s called

Equal terms and what that provides is it really provides that a local government cannot treat a religious shoes unless an ankle terms with similar non-religious uses and from otherwise discriminating on the basis of religion there is no substantial burden requirement under the equal terms use so what types of uses

Are equal well the this again is case specific and again you you really do want to talk with with with me or with your local tourneys within your jurisdiction to determine what uses are equal because what depending on the state depend whatever federal district you’re in something may be equal and

Something may be may not be equal in on this slide 43 that’s in ferns right now is a list of cases where generally courts have found to be equal for you know for an equal terms announces in other words a secular assembly use is permitted but a religious use is not

Permitted these are the equal terms issues there is the task that most courts look to when I look at equal terms that derived out of the Third Circuit in a case called lighthouse institute for evangelism versus Long Branch and the cast for equal terms is as follows a plan for

Serena claim under the relief of equal terms provision must show one it is a religious assembly or institution to to subject to a land use regulation which three treats the religious assembly at less than equal terms with for a non-religious assembly or institution and five that causes no lesser harm to

The interest the regulation seeks to advance again you really do want to talk to your local council to determine what is equal terms or what is not equal terms within your jurisdiction and the line continues to change and it will continue to change for court period of

Time so you might be thinking yourself after after me talking for an hour of this why do we have a slide in is it fair and as a constitutional well yes the issue of constitutionality has been before the US Supreme Court and a case called cutter vs. Wilkinson and the

Court has found it is that it is definitely constitutional so that issue is off the table and you’re going to be arguing in many of you I understand represent and work with communities and these are the typical arguments against religious land use applications if there’s no requirement to pay taxes the

Depletion of public resources taking up valuable space or real estate or simple prejudice against religious denominations again these have never been found to be an appropriate basis to you know to to deflate against a particular religious land use and I would encourage you there’s a series of

Articles out there right now that talk about the value of religious uses within a community if you’re just talking dollars and cents there is a significant amount of studies that talk about the value that dollar wise what churches bring to a particular community for example a fairly extensive study was

Done in the Phil Elfi area about three years ago in that case there’s a review of a little over two thousand churches within the greater philadelphia area and they determined that each church they are provided a certain sufficient amount of interest in value to the community they came up to

Something like 20 million dollars a year in value to this community it is significantly more than any property taxes that are out there and the argument about depletion of public resources simply it does not exist churches don’t require fire are generally or police generally or things like that simply because the nature of

Each one their arguments for religious land use applications is that they really do provide a moral foundation for success of self-government and our American experience would not succeed without the moral training by churches and we can debate back and forth whether or not you believe that the founding fathers are

Believed in this or had a religious basis for making the Constitution in our form of government but I really think and I believe and I think a lot of scholars also agree with us agree with me that this American experience would experiment would not be successful without this basis of training by

Churches so there are a number of social benefits that are that derive from having churches within your community sinkers trust levels of volunteering things along those lines so why is real oopah needed well why it’s needed as you simple it simply levels the playing field it does not give religious uses an

Increase or trump card over local zoning laws now everybody who opposes me in religiously in these cases every professor every writer out there and there are many and many are my friends will always say that no it is a trump card but it’s not you know when you

Litigate these cases or I say when I litigate these cases I know that I have an uphill battle with raluca cases I know by reading the case law that churches lose more cases than they win using raluca it’s not a trump card what it is is it simply levels the playing

Field what it did what it does is an imparts traditional different deference to local land use regulators who’s highly discretionary decisions compel review like the case i just mentioned in philadelphia little while ago in that case the community simply didn’t want a hindu temple there it was a it was an

Older established wealthy community that didn’t want the hindu temple what were lupus says you can’t discriminate again was it based on this based on what type of religion is out there and that is why we have really pas well nine years actually it’s ten years after Luba the

Issue is is where the floodgates will but after after we Luke was passed well it has with respect to institutionalized persons there are a time of cases you’ll find out there with respect to prisoners who have raised raluca concerns so if you just google / Lupo or do a Lexus

Search you’ll find a ton of cases out there if most of those are prisoner cases in most of those cases the prisoners lose but with respect to land use cases no there’s not that many you know I’ll be honest with you I devote a substantial practice portion of my

Practice to religious land use throughout the United States and I may have 30 atmos every year total on religious land-use matters so there is not a ton of these cases the Department of Justice has the ability from lupa to intervene and to raise her lupa cases they’ve only raised eight and filed

Eight more lupa cases in the last ten years they’ve opened investigations in about fifty four cases but only eight actual litigation cases what with respect to the last point of help from well-funded allies there are a number of groups that hate hate hate raluca and they have come out against it repeatedly

But every time they do and ever my argument that they have on land use on they typically use because raluca is constitutional and it is the right thing to do so what’s next with religious land use well there’s going to be a constant definition of substantial burden I don’t

Think we are going to have a firm definition of that yet we have to understand what the remedy is that the supreme court now has a case of involving real upon the prisoner side of things and the question is is whether or not damages are available on a rubub

Because Congress said that you in terms of remedy that you’re entitled to all appropriate relief and the question is is what does that mean so hopefully the Supreme Court will say that you are from my standpoint or just limited to two prisoners and then pursuing new cases that the determination of the

Obama administration their focus our Olympic cases seems to remain the same as it was under george w bush not as involved but they are still involved and the involvement of department of justice you’ll see them more on cases involving what we what is now considered the United States minority religion which is

The mosque cases like in a Chicago area or in Tennessee you’ll see cases there and that is in a nutshell where we are at today with raluca so my hour is up and i know we have time for questions so i’ll leave that open for Amy okay I’ve

Got the first question that I have is is you had mentioned the study done in felt in the Philadelphia area regarding the value provided to the community by churches do have is this a moment you could send link to after the webinar or as M&F easily found on the internet um

Yeah I could I could send a link to it or or I could I mean it was forwarded to me so I don’t know it would be easily found under the internet but sure if you send me your email address I’ve been wanting happy to send you the link to

That third study okay thank you the next question we have is is can you think about raluca and the applicability of local setting regulations for example our religious uses exempt from temporary sighing regulations that promote accessory uses and activities such as daycare cams etc well with signs were

Lupa does not does not does not provide any type of immunity for a sign regulation you still have to comply with the with the local governmental authorities you know regulations and restrictions on signs there was a case that tested this out of Baltimore and it was a free-standing sign that was headed

Building in a location we’re a number of freeways intersected and the church wanted to put a sign up and identify the church and have kind of like it’s like a flash board basically up there and try to use real lupa but the the local court denying that use and

I think the matter is on appeal right now but nothing really happened with that so from a sign perspective generally so 718 is that reliever doesn’t apply now if you had a situation out there where signs are allowed for secular uses let’s say that you have a nursing nursing program at your church

And that there’s a is a private nursery down the road the private nursery can have two signs on its building and a pole signer freestanding sign but the church is but but that same uses to die by the church then you may have an equal terms type claim Andrew lupa would apply

But you know as long as it’s not content driven in other words the ordinance doesn’t say you can never have a religious use on your sign well that will be valid about invalidated by First Amendment challenge but if it’s generally neutral that all signs are a certain size and a certain number you

Can’t have poll signs or whatever then it’s going to be applied generally equal all throughout different types of uses has anyone tried to use equal terms in the opposite in other words trying to get a commercial assembly use in a residential zone area where churches are allowed not that I’m aware of because

You have to be you have to have a religious exercise to use a relief uh so no I don’t think you would be able to do that but conversely though you have the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and you can use that reset argument under the Equal

Protection Clause but I haven’t just not familiar with any any cases out there that were were folks have done now thank you and the next question I have is isn’t our religious use similar to a bank and what they can take up in property value in terms of retail

Couldn’t you prohibit religiously and use in one commercial district and allow it in all the others so kind of church kind of government limit churches to some specific zones and prohibit like for commercial and then prohibit and others like residential one more time Amy I’m sorry you said it one more time

Yeah is it religious could you prohibit a religious man juice in one commercial district and allow it and all the others so I think what they’re saying is that could you allow it in residential but not primitive primitive residential but not in commercial if I understand it

Correctly thank you Karen I mean yes and no I mean give me an example in Carlinville for example the ordinance was amended a third time and in after they took out the issue of allowing secular assembly within this particular zone they amended the ordinance to provide religious use within all

Residential areas and in that case the court what what they basically do the effectively excluded religious uses within the community and because there is no collection of residential land that was available to be used for religious use for example you know that what would happen and this kind of a

Trend right now I see what if communities are doing as I said you can have religious uses anywhere in the city except for here and then you look within those areas and there no available land or land just is not welcome for building any type of use on

And for an effective exclusion so you can’t do that there’s constitutional prohibit prohibitions as well as case longer or lupinus as you can’t do that from that perspective but you can zone areas that say this is where we want religious uses because we have assembly

Uses here as well or like in the Yuma case which is going to be kind of interesting to see what happens the you mayor is on a case you can say in that case well we have this historic district that we’ve been planning or using you know they’ve been working on this for

Years and years and years and from this perspective what we’re going to say is we’re only going to have succulent assembly uses here but no religious uses in that case and it’s very specific to federal district court in Arizona that’s that you okay other courts have said no

If you’re going to allow a secular assembly use it not allow our religious issues as well I also had a question about our churches precluded from following Cindy adapted citywide non-residential design standards with this law and if so what is the key is LA Keith Law is again is all over the board

Of that one as well they’re not communities are not precluded from enacting those ordinances but again it’s got to be clear and it’s got to be equal and it’s got to be non offensive to religion for example there’s a case I have right now in New Mexico where a

Church it’s in kind of like a downtown area downtown zone and it provides for lighting like neon type of lighting they want they want for whatever reason they want to encourage me on top type lighting in this area it just doesn’t fit or work with the church and the church doesn’t believe

That it’s appropriate based on their religious beliefs to have this requirement to have the neon lighting and they believe that the only reason that they have this requirement is to make sure that the church doesn’t located in this particular area that wouldn’t be okay it wouldn’t be okay to

Say that you can’t have icons on the outside of your church for example because it doesn’t fit within the the taste of the community there are First Amendment concerns based on that as well but you can work through an appropriate design that makes it continuous or harmonious with it just adjacent

Neighborhood as long as it doesn’t offend religious practices or purposes in Chicago there’s a series of cases out there right now where there’s a prohibition for example of placing a finance called an ERV ERV ii which is like a jewish like a scroll outside a

Door or outside an area and it has a blessing on it and there’s a prohibition on there was a local community but a prohibition on that because they didn’t want these outside based on design standards and the court said that violates rule uba and also First

Amendment concerns as well so can it be done yes you have just have to be sensitive to religious uses and when you have a religious use come in there you know the first thing is not to say no but it’s to understand what is the religious speed and how do we make this

Fit specifically or tailor this with our particular particular ordinance thank you the next question is do you have any examples of relief affecting efforts to control sprawl especially with the proliferation of exurban mega churches no I I don’t i mean the the closest thing i can i can talk to you about is

That the rocky mountain christian church case out of boulder colorado and it is a mega church it’s a large church it’s in a rural area the church wanting to expand its its campus and in the county and in boulder county had some audiences that said that you know you have to

Limit the type of sizes of buildings in these particular areas for a number of reasons based on car making means basically the idea was is to prevent sprawl the Church’s position in that case it wasn’t really to prevent sprawl but to prevent mega churches or large

Churches from me in there in that case there was actually a trial and the court the church wanted trial he wanted them and they won in the court of appeals as well this that was a case at the Supreme Court denied to use there’s another case

I’m representing right now in its in the Sixth Circuit called North Ridge Church the fairly large Church out of Plymouth Township Michigan and the church was developed under litigation basically where the entrance to a consent judgment back in the early 90s when r if r 0 is a

La was it was in place and the idea was is to limit the size of this church in this particular area and the township enacted zoning ordinances after the church was or ever the case of settled that basically eliminates any other law our church within those areas the

Problem with the northridge case any conscious ordinances is that that violates rule uba in First Amendment concerns as well because you can’t just say we only want these size or types of churches within our area Free Exercise Clause allows free exercise of religion that denomination or size church the

Whole nine yards so from their standpoint there Nikki’s law is still developing on that particular point but from that standpoint it seems to me that the churches have the better argument thank you the next question I get is how easy is it to limit church uses to the worship center and prohibit the

Multitude of accessories such as schools daycare our sphere book stores etc yeah you know that’s a it’s an issue they’re tapping all over the United States right now and the answer is is is it depends it depends where you’re at it depends what the accessory use is some courts

Like in in Michigan for example state courts have determined that religious uses and religious assembly means only that it only means that uses within a sanctuary Sunday morning 29 services that’s it you can’t have bookstores or classrooms for Sunday school or nursery schools or anything like that many many

Other courts many more enlightened courts throughout the United States has said no churches are more than Sunday morning and wednesday nights it’s seven days a week it’sit’s classes it’s family life issues it’s everything else that churches provide angel care ministry meaning food pantry or clothing or banks

Or counseling or or a number of other things that churches provide the communities don’t provide while provider just can’t afford to provide so the bottom line is is you you have to really look at your specific jurisdiction to find out how the case law has developed and determine whether it’s easier

Difficult to limit those particular uses the one thing I would recommend is if you have a concern about those issues the best thing to do is just sit down with the church during planning and say listen what is it that you want and and how can we make this work within our

Jurisdiction maybe it would be good to have a school or nursery school there but not so good to have a homeless shelter or a or food pantry or or a prison ministry or something along those lines if you address those concerns with the church outright instead of saying no you can’t have this

You’ll be less likely to find yourself at the receiving end of the lawsuit but just sitting down having those negotiations understanding these each other’s issues I think you’ll have a better shot of making whatever you want work I have another question is it is there a problem with our code if

Churches require conditional use approval in all zoning districts II you know that if that’s more like it is more case law driven on that point I’ve argued and I’ve been successful in arguing and saying that it is because you don’t have church has a right anywhere you have only have it as

Conditional use and it’s highly discretionary in terms of what the standards are for / conditional users or a special a nice approval and without without having those standards there that violates both the Free Exercise Clause the free speech Clause as well as we’re lupa it some it depends where you

Are in the United States in terms of we’re going to come out on those on that particular issue and in most cases or not then yeah you you are going to have a problem based on how the case law is right at this moment by saying you can’t have churches except within conditional

Uses area it’s kind of like putting saying that okay will allow churches in one other zoning district knowing full well that you can’t have a church there at all for example finish up a case in a city called Hazel Park where in there under their zoning ordinances they

Mended his own in torrance back in 2005 that says we wish to exclude though it was an ordinance to exclude religious uses throughout city except residential and then throughout their warehouse clauses they said whereas we understand that the residential district is one hundred percent built out meaning you

Could never build anything there you could never build a church in that city because there was no parcels collectible portable parcels of residential land available to to build a UH to build a religious use a new religious use and that case you know clearly violates will open in the First Amendment so really

Just take a look at how your your federal courts in state courts have interpreted those provisions under the law full of questions that were related to the walmart case that you pointed out sure what was the city’s reason for excluding churches in walmart they wanted to have a retail store there they

Just wanted to have a they didn’t want to have a church there and they wanted to have a taxpayer to be there and is it in the case is Italy is it legal for a city to initiate a rezoning without the owner’s permission what is the relationship between the deed

Restriction in the zoning um yes I mean the city can initiate rezoning without the permission of the owner they have to provide notice and an opportunity to be heard and ultimately they can resolve the land you know there’s there’s a series of case law out there that talks

About if you know rezoning in bad faith if that occurs to to a church you know where where they’re not or they’re one of those things where where the whole idea is just to exclude them there’s a serious cases out there that’s as you

Can’t do that but it is it is okay to resolve without you know that the approval of the owner with research to the deed restrictions that’s a completely different story deed restrictions don’t involve zoning that just involves a private agreement between the buyer and the sellers to

What the use is to be and you’ll see those a lot in walmart deeds and came our deeds and the reason why is is walmart doesn’t want a minor or a Kmart or a Lowe’s or somebody that competes with them to go on their old store so

That’s that’s why they have those in there and the challenge with those deed restrictions is Walmart’s do everything we look at them there’s there’s places to get your hair cut your car worked on to get eyeglasses buy groceries a whole nine yards so it’s very difficult to

Have a use that precludes you know that that that doesn’t do something that then one more does so deep resources are a little bit different it’s a look then then then zoning Andrew loupe it does not apply to be prescriptions well it does apply in some contexts but but

It’s very difficult another question is some public agencies have allowed plaques of the Ten Commandments on public property which special interests have demanded to be removed as a separation of church and state our plaque is okay or not must you allow or prohibit such displays on public properties from any and all religions

And business and a removable issue I’ll answer the last question first no it’s not a relief at issue that issue continues to evolve there’s many Supreme Court cases on that point latest of which which is called the sunam decision out of Utah you know it’s the crux of

That issue is the Establishment Clause not the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause goes to does this fall with him so she’s becoming an establishment of religion by including like Vidya the Ten Commandments there’s a there’s a very famous case that’s ongoing it’s been ongoing now for about

۱۵ years and it’s out in the San Diego area involving across on top of a hill that was installed years and years ago and that issue still hasn’t been resolved there’s another one involving across off of a highway in a federal park that issues still not resolved there’s issues there’s challenges now by

Groups that have sued cemeteries like Arlington seminary cemetery and number of others receive crosses or stars of David’s on tombstones and cross it throughout the claim is is that that that’s an establishment of religion so those are issues that are still pending right now I personally don’t feel like

It is an Establishment Clause issue but I’m not a judge so it doesn’t really matter what I think but it’s not a relief ahora zoning issue thank you so second and the mirth question I was just checking you sure most of them are covered some of them were fairly lengthy

If a zoning district allows assembly uses and clothes including auditorium theater stands halls in gymnasium since I also have to follow because although it’s allowed churches or can churches be allowed in that zoning district by conditional use permit within the typical accessories as an operating characteristics of churches are

Different than those of assembly you Susan could reasonably warrant the scrutiny of the GOP process can be sure i’m assuming ups conditional use permit process its initial use sure i mean again it depends on where you’re at and how the equal terms cause is being interpreted within your jurisdiction the

General rule of thumb know is that if you allow a secular assembly use a gym for example then you have to allow religious use you can’t discriminate based on religion religion so with respect to if it’s allowed as a right as a secular gym but conditional use is a

Is a church i think you know i would have a fairly good equal terms claim there the one thing that I have to do though is before a recent claim is I’d have to go through and the plan commission or border zoning appeals or township or whatever the case may be to

Exhaust my remedies to determine whether or not the city would allow that use for not if you just go ahead as a church and go ahead and file suit based on the ordinance the court would probably dismiss the claim saying no you got to go through the process first to see if

The uses permitted or not but again it’s there’s not a definitive answer to that question it really depends on the jurisdiction at your end to determine if there’s an equal terms argument or not the next question that I have is if the only land in the city available for our

Church were prohibited to a church by Adi restriction would that site be considered available for church ah if the only land that was permitted is be restricted would it be yeah well that would be that would be essentially an effective exclusion there is a Supreme Court case called city of renton we’re

Involved in adult use in funny thing in this area the law is is the first American cases involving land use typically involved churches and adult uses but city of renton is an adult who’s matter and it was kind of the similar argument from the standpoint of it does this effectively exclude the

Religious use and the court said it did and it went through a very thorough analysis based on percentage of available land and what is the definition of available land and things along those lines finding that that you know even though the use is permitted within the city of renton the way the

Ordinance was designed it excludes it on a similar standpoint everything from a pure zoning argument I was similar case involving a ma I’m a township zoned in particular area in town saying you can have mining at all these areas except for this one well the one area that they

Excluded the zoning excluded mining is the only area in town where mining there was there’s rocks and things to my in other words the earlier areas are underwater or wetlands or forests or residential homes so that’s an effective exclusion as well and and that would that ordinance will likely be

Invalidated somewhere down the road so did if it’s deep restricted you know seed restricted and you know that churches then I think you would if it would be excluded good fall within the exclusions and also under the First Amendment concerns and would violate we lupa another question that i have is can

A non-religious use to under lupa if they are excluded but a churches are allowed nope you have to under Rule oopah one of the the threshold requirements is that you have to be involved with in the religious exercise so it’s if you don’t have religious exercise then you the threshold basis

For a loop acclaim but you do have a claim under the Constitution under the Equal Protection Clause or procedural due process or substantive due process or something along those lines or maybe even exclusionary zoning under state law but you would not have a relief a claim the next question is with the general

Expansion of uses within churches including income-producing uses such as a store why does this not reduce justification for tax-exempt status most other countries levy income taxes on most churches right well you know it’s interesting at these times at least what I’m finding is that cities are no longer

Hands off to church when it comes to you know religious uses and what happens and what we find is that if there is an income generating facility like a bookstore or church or now I have a television studio recording studio where that is a money generating income that

Portion of the ministry in that portion of the building is no longer considered tax-exempt and that is okay under under the state laws and speak Constitution and federal laws as well it’s okay to tax those those portions in the bra sense though is you’ll find most churches are not like that there’s the

The larger churches of the mega churches constitute less than five percent of all religious uses within the United States and if you took away that tax exemption for these uses you would find a lot of churches going away this church’s struggle churches are having very difficult times right now they’ve always

Had difficult times financially but now even war based on the economy and where we’re at in the scheme of things so I don’t think there is a justification out there to reduce the tax exemption but if there is an issue out there where church is generating income and certainly

Publishing houses things on those lines and yeah i would think that taxes would have to be paid with our last question what is the line between full religious uses that ones and the ones that only incorporate minor religious activities in order to take advantage of early but

What is the line you know it’s really it’s fact-based it depends on the facts of the case if it’s truly a non-religious use then it’s going then we’re looping not going to apply for example one in the one case it’s fairly prize out fairly publicized by those

Opposing or lupa was a group of college students in washington DC wanted to live together in a house it did those owning district didn’t allow for multiple unrelated occupants in the home uh so the students declare their house of church and said we’re exempted under

Alupo you can’t get us out so at that point in time the pic church said or you know or the area so we can’t we can’t go there anymore so i think my time is up thank you for this opportunity and if you have any other questions feel free

To shoot me an email or give me a call thanks yes thank you Dan and Amy for today’s presentation for those of you still in attendance just a little brief recap of logging your same credits so you’ll just need to go to ww planning org cm select activities by date and then underneath

Today’s date thursday january 27th you will find religion zoning and the court and over an overview of ver lupa and again we are recording today’s session and so you will be able to find a PDF and a video recording of today’s webinar at this address and this should be up by

Monday so be sure to check back then and thanks again thank you very much

ID: M3ml7BQlOWE
Time: 1344288351
Date: 2012-08-07 01:55:51
Duration: 01:30:34

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