Resource. RLUIPA is addressed fully in a special report by Richard Hammar entitled 'The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act' that is available at www.ChurchLawandTax.com or by calling 1-800-222-1840).
• Key point 5-02.1. Local zoning laws generally allow "churches" in residential areas. The courts have struggled with applying this term to various activities and organizations other than traditional congregations meeting in a building for regular worship services.
• Key point. The federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act prohibits state and local governments from imposing a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the exercise of religion unless the regulation is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
* A federal court in New Jersey ruled that the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was possibly violated by a city's refusal to grant a church a conditional use permit to expand its facilities to accommodate a growing congregation. For many years a church held one worship service for its entire congregation. As the congregation grew, the church split the services in two because the sanctuary no longer was large enough to accommodate the entire congregation. The church leadership believed that a single service for the entire congregation was preferable, and so they sought to expand its facilities. The church was located in an R-10 zone, which was a residential zone in which churches and related accessory buildings were permitted as a conditional use only. The church did not meet all of the conditions for the issuance of a conditional permit to expand its facilities, and so it asked the city zoning board for several variances. The zoning board denied the church's application for a conditional use permit, citing increased traffic, light, and noise pollution, a negative impact on the visual landscape of the city, the proposed size of the church's planned structure was out of proportion with the neighborhood, and the proposed expansion's adverse impacts on surface water quality due to impervious coverage. The zoning board stated that "the approval of this application with a facility of its magnitude would essentially change the entire character of the neighborhood from an essentially rural, quiet neighborhood to one of an entirely different character.'
The church claimed that this denial "has substantially burdened its religious exercise by preventing it from worshiping together as one congregation, participating in necessary ministries, and being accessible to its congregation." It sued the city, claiming violations of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and the First Amendment guaranty of religious freedom. The section of the RLUIPA relating to land use regulations states: 'No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person, assembly or institution (a) is in furtherance of a compelling government interest; and (b) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest.'
The court noted that if the church could demonstrate the existence of a substantial burden on the exercise of its religious beliefs, then RLUIPA shifted the burden to the city to show that its actions furthered a compelling state interest by the least restrictive means. The church claimed that the city's denial of a conditional use permit "substantially burdened its religious exercise by preventing it from worshiping together as one congregation, participating in necessary ministries, and being accessible to its congregation." The city argued that the denial of the permit did not constitute a substantial burden on the church's religious exercise and, therefore, the court should dismiss the church's lawsuit.
The court began its opinion by noting that 'the need for religious institutions to have the ability to develop a physical space adequate to their needs and consistent with their theological requirements is at the heart of the RLUIPA's land-use provisions. This was further recognized in the statutory language of the RLUIPA which defines religious exercise as 'any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief …. The use … of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.'
The court noted that RLUIPA contains no definition of the term "substantial burden," but concluded that it 'could not agree with the city's assertion that the fact that the church cannot engage in worship with their entire congregation at the same time and place does not and cannot establish a substantial burden." The Church of the Hills v. Township of Bedminster, 2006 WL 462674 (D.N.J. 2006).
