In 2000, Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) in response to a Supreme Court case holding that the 1992 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) could not be used to restrain state government agencies without violating the Constitution.
Congress’s goal in enacting RLUIPA—the same purpose it had in enacting RFRA eight years earlier—was to ensure that courts would hold government agencies to a stricter, more-exacting level of scrutiny with respect to government agency actions that impinged upon a religious organization’s free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .”)
Unlike RFRA, which applied to virtually any government agency action, RLUIPA is focused on just two specific scenarios: (1) government-created burdens on the ability of prisoners to worship God, typically in the form of prison rules that impinge on a prisoner’s religious beliefs; and (2) government-created burdens on churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious organizations, usually in the context of zoning laws or other land-use restrictions at the city, county, or state level.
So what is a “land-use regulation”? RLUIPA defines it as “a zoning or landmarking law, or the application of such a law, that limits or restricts a claimant’s use or development of land (including a structure affixed to land).” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(5).
RLUIPA land-use cases can arise in a wide range of situations and contexts. Just as any good real estate agent knows that no two parcels of land are identical, it’s also true that no two RLUIPA cases are the same.[1] This is not a cookie-cutter” area of the law. To win a RLUIPA case, your church or religious organization will need experienced attorney who is knowledgeable, confident and capable.
I have litigated—and won—a number of cases on behalf of churches and other religious organizations. If you belong to a church or other religious organization that is facing a difficult zoning, historical-landmarking, or other land-use situation, I might be able to help you. Contact me today to get the conversation started.
[1] You may be wondering to yourself, how often do these disputes actually happen? The reality is that they happen more often than you think. As recently as March 2018, the zoning authority in Louisville approved a proposal to designate an Orthodox Jewish congregation’s buildings as a historical landmark—which meant that the congregation wouldn’t be able to use, renovate or rebuild the property as they saw fit. Even worse, the person leading the charge for the landmarking proposal wasn’t even a member of the congregation! Later this year we will find out whether the Metro Louisville Metro Council’s members will have enough sense to overrule the zoning authority’s decision. If they don’t, the congregation will have strong grounds to bring a RLUIPA challenge to vindicate their rights to use their property as they see fit.