[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 12-12984

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:10-cv-24549-KMW

TEMPLE B’NAI ZION, INC., 

a Florida not-for-profit corporation, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant,

versus

CITY OF SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FLORIDA, 

a Florida municipality, 

NORMAN EDELCUP, 

individually, 

 Defendants - Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(August 29, 2013)

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Before TJOFLAT and WILSON Circuit Judges, and COOGLER,

* District Judge.

WILSON, Circuit Judge:

Under the doctrine known as ripeness, we must determine that a given issue 

is sufficiently developed (i.e., ripe) for judicial intervention before we will exercise 

jurisdiction over it. This appeal presents the question whether an Orthodox Jewish 

synagogue’s statutory and constitutional challenges to its designation as a historic

landmark by a municipality are ripe for adjudication. We begin with the 

background facts necessary to our discussion. 

I.

Temple B’Nai Zion (Temple) is a Sephardic Jewish religious organization

that operates an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in the City of Sunny Isles Beach, 

Florida (“Sunny Isles Beach” or “City”). The Temple purchased the land on which 

it is currently situated from the Sunny Isles Epiphany Lutheran Church in 1977. 

Because the building had previously housed a Christian church, the Temple made 

certain modifications to minimize Christian symbols on the property, including 

removing many of the stained-glass windows and attempting to conceal the crossshaped design of the main sanctuary. The Temple then began operating as a 

Conservative Judaic house of worship, and by 1986 the congregation had grown to 

some 400 families. 

 

* Honorable L. Scott Coogler, United States District Judge for the Northern District of 

Alabama, sitting by designation.

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Over the years that followed, however, the Temple’s membership 

languished, and by the early 2000s only about 100 members remained in the 

congregation. According to the Temple’s complaint, the present saga began in 

2004, when the Temple sought out Rabbi Aaron Lankry for assistance in 

increasing the membership of the congregation and in raising funds for the 

Temple’s operations. Soon thereafter Rabbi Lankry began to align the Temple’s

religious beliefs with the Orthodox form of Judaism. Orthodox Judaism is a 

formulation of the religion that adheres to a rather strict interpretation and 

application of Talmudic law. In Orthodox synagogues, for example, men and 

women must be seated in separate sections, and the alignment of the synagogue 

must be such that the congregation faces east—toward Jerusalem—during prayers. 

Prior to the switch, the Temple had practiced Conservative Judaism, a modern 

approach to the religion that seeks to conserve traditional elements of the faith but 

nonetheless permits for some degree of modernization and rabbinical development. 

According to the Temple, the move from Conservative Judaism to Orthodox 

Judaism—a more stringent brand of the faith—angered some congregants, 

including Norman Edelcup, the current mayor of Sunny Isles Beach.

Earlier in 2004, Mayor Edelcup, while still a member of the Temple’s 

congregation, conceived the idea of the City hosting a reunion for Sunny Isles 

Beach’s approximately 300 Holocaust survivors. The event, which was held in the 

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Temple’s social hall on March 28, 2004, was attended by roughly 200 of the

survivors. 

Later that same year, after the Temple became Orthodox and Mayor Edelcup 

left the congregation, the Temple resolved to bring certain elements of its physical 

plant into alignment with its Orthodox religious precepts. Specifically, the Temple 

sought to rectify four issues that did not conform with its Orthodox beliefs: (1) the 

seating area of the sanctuary was facing west; (2) the floor plan was in the shape of 

a crucifix (from the building’s time as a Lutheran church); (3) the seating area for 

the main sanctuary lacked separate sections for men and women; and (4) the 

building was shaped like a triangle to symbolize the Holy Trinity of the Christian 

faith. Because reconfiguring the building to address these issues would be 

difficult, the Temple decided to demolish the building and to reconstruct it in 

accordance with Orthodox religious precepts. To that end, in 2006 the Temple 

hired an architect to develop plans for a larger, Orthodox house of worship.

The City was not supportive of the Temple’s expansion plans, and in the 

period that followed Rabbi Lankry met with Mayor Edelcup on several occasions 

to work out the differences. The meetings went badly. At one point, Mayor 

Edelcup allegedly referred to the Sephardic Jewish community as a “bunch of 

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pigs.”1 When Rabbi Lankry inquired as to whether he could quote the mayor as to 

his pejorative comment, Mayor Edelcup responded, “I don’t care what the 

[expletive] you do.” The animosity between the parties now proceeded at full 

bore: when the Temple rebuffed the City’s attempt to purchase the property on 

which the Temple was situated (the Temple is apparently located adjacent to city 

hall), Mayor Edelcup directed the City’s code enforcement officers to inspect the 

Temple, and between September 2007 and February 2009, the Temple received 12 

separate code violation notices from City officials. 

In March 2006, the City’s Historic Preservation Board (Preservation Board)

met to consider certain properties for possible designation as historic sites. At that 

time, no site had ever been designated historic, despite the City’s storied and 

socially significant past. Sunny Isles Beach was originally developed as a tourist 

resort in the 1920s, and expanded slowly until the 1940s, when it enjoyed rapid 

growth in tourism. The City’s first four-story hotel, the Golden Strand, was built 

in 1946. Then, in 1949, the nation’s first two-story “motor hotel,” or motel, known 

as the Ocean Palm, was built in Sunny Isles Beach. A stretch of land known as 

“Motel Row” soon sprung up in the City, and before long there were countless 

motels in the bustling vacation community. Celebrities visited Sunny Isles Beach, 

 1 According to the complaint, Rabbi Lankry is a Sephardic Jew, and Mayor Edelcup has a 

“personal vendetta against Rabbi Lankry and the Temple’s Orthodox Jewish Sephardic 

membership.”

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too. The Golden Strand, which still exists today, hosted visitors including Grace 

Kelly, Burt Lancaster, Mike Todd, and Gary Cooper, as well as members of the 

Dupont, Vanderbilt, and Guggenheim families. To this day, a plaque in the Sunny 

Isles Beach Government Center notes that the last Florida residence of the 

legendary slugger Babe Ruth was at the Golden Strand Hotel, and certain 

illustrious musical acts such as The Beatles, Ike and Tina Turner, Ray Charles, and 

Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons basked in the sun along Motel Row during 

this period. 

The Preservation Board considered five properties for potential historic 

designation at its March 2006 meeting: (1) the Ocean Palm Motel (built in 1949), 

(2) the Golden Strand Hotel (built in 1946), (3) the Sahara Motel (built in 1953), 

(4) St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church (built in 1961), and (5) the Temple (built 

in 1964). After hearing comments from interested parties, the Preservation Board 

declined to designate any of the sites as historic. The Preservation Board again 

considered the Temple for possible designation in 2008, but again decided against 

taking any action.

In 2009, another Orthodox Jewish congregation in Miami Beach, Beit 

Rambam, inquired with the Temple whether it might use some of the Temple’s 

space for religious services. The Temple agreed, and entered into a lease 

agreement that permits Beit Rambam to use the main sanctuary, with the two 

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congregations jointly sharing the other areas of the property. Because the 

combined congregations enjoyed larger membership and their arrangement

increased the overall usage of the property, the Temple revisited its 2006 plans to 

demolish the building and construct a larger one in its stead. The Temple therefore 

applied for two building permits so that it could begin its planned construction. 

Both were denied. 

The Temple alleges that in response to its renewed interest in expansion, the 

City redoubled its efforts to designate the Temple a historic site. The City retained 

Ellen Uguccioni, a historic preservation officer with the City of Miami, to serve as 

a consultant for purposes of investigating whether the Temple met the criteria for 

historic designation enumerated in Section 171-5 of the City’s Code of Ordinances 

and, if so, to prepare a formal report in favor of designation.2

 Uguccioni’s hiring 

 

2 Section 171-5, titled “Standards for designation of archaeological and historic 

landmarks,” provides:

Properties may be designated as archaeological sites only if they have 

significance in the archaeological heritage of the area, state, or nation; and meet 

one or more of the following criteria:

A. Are associated in a significant way with the life of a person important 

in the past; or

B. Are the site of an historic event with significant effect upon the 

community, City, state, or nation; or

C. Exemplify the historical, cultural, political, economic, or social trends 

of the community; or

D. Have yielded, or are likely to yield, information important in 

prehistory or history; or

E. Contain any subsurface remains of historical or archaeological 

importance or any unusual ground formations of archaeological significance; or

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was the first time the City had ever retained a professional consultant to evaluate 

the historical significance of a landmark candidate. 

In January 2010, Uguccioni submitted a Historic Landmark Designation 

Report to the Preservation Board recommending that the Temple be designated a 

landmark. According to Uguccioni’s report, the 2004 gathering of 200 Holocaust 

survivors at the Temple qualified the Temple as a historic site because it rendered 

the Temple “the site of an historic event with significant effect upon the 

community, City, state, or nation.” Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., Code of Ordinances 

§ 171-5(B). The Preservation Board met in March 2010, approved Uguccioni’s 

report, and set a June hearing to consider the Temple’s designation as a historic

site. The Temple applied for yet another demolition permit in April 2010, which 

the City again refused. Further, the City Commission enacted a resolution in May 

that declared a temporary moratorium on the acceptance and processing of all 

applications for demolition of non-residential structures pending the City’s study 

of potential additions to the City’s register of historic sites. At that time, the City 

had yet to designate any site as historic, and according to the complaint the Temple 

was the only site then under consideration for such designation.

 

F. Are designated in the City of Sunny Isles Beach Comprehensive 

Plan/or Florida Master Site File.

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On June 22, 2010, the Preservation Board held a hearing to consider the 

designation of the Temple as a historic site. The Temple offered witnesses against 

the proposed designation, but based in part upon the gathering of Holocaust 

survivors, in addition to the Temple’s purported “exemplif[ication] [of] the 

historical, cultural, political, economic, or social trends of the community,” id.

§ 171-5(C), the Preservation Board voted 4 to 1 to designate the main sanctuary, 

portico, and memorial tower of the Temple a historic site and passed Resolution 

No. 2010-13 to that effect.3

 Resolution No. 2010-13, which took immediate effect, 

requires that the Temple “preserve the [landmarked] portions of the Temple B’Nai 

Zion from modification in its exterior appearance, including alteration and/or 

demolition,” and declares that “no building permits shall be issued to alter and/or 

demolish the aforementioned portions of Temple B’Nai Zion.” 

The Sunny Isles Beach Code of Ordinances provides that “[a]ny aggrieved 

party may appeal any decision of the [Preservation] Board to the City 

Commission” within 14 days of the designation of a given property as a historic

site. Id. § 171-4(D)(1). “The decision of the City Commission [on appeal] shall 

constitute final administrative review, and no petition for rehearing or 

reconsideration shall be considered by the City.” Id. § 171-4(D)(2). In 

 

3 Uguccioni, the historical consultant, had found in her report that the sanctuary, portico, 

and tower had historical value, but that the social hall (where the Holocaust gathering actually 

took place) and connector building lacked sufficient historical value to be protected as part of the 

historic site.

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conformance with that procedure, the Temple timely appealed the designation. At 

a public hearing held before the full City Commission on September 2, 2010, the 

same witnesses who had appeared before the Preservation Board appeared again 

and provided essentially the same testimony. Because the hearing was public, 

citizens were permitted to take the lectern and offer comments during the 

proceeding; many took the opportunity to complain about the operation of the 

Temple, accusing Rabbi Lankry and the Temple of removing memorial plaques 

from the walls, failing to light candles for deceased congregants, denying access to 

former congregants, and absconding with the Temple’s Torahs. The City 

Commissioners—three out of five of whom were members of the Temple 

congregation before it became Orthodox—also offered public comments before 

voting on the designation. Commissioner Gerry Goodman, who had previously sat

on the Temple’s board of directors, for example, questioned Rabbi Lankry at 

length about why the Temple seemed to be closed to the public on certain days. 

Commissioner Goodman had purchased a memorial plaque for a loved one at the 

Temple some years earlier but had been unable to view the plaque when he 

attempted to do so. Goodman then began to ask Rabbi Lankry whether the Temple 

was being leased out, but Mayor Edelcup interjected, admonishing Goodman to 

“[f]ocus on the issues.” Before closing his remarks, Goodman asked Rabbi Lankry 

whether Lankry had called him an anti-Semite in the local newspaper. 

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Following Commissioner Goodman’s statement, Commissioner George 

“Bud” Scholl made the following statement for the record:

Okay. All I can say is wow. There is going to be some irony in 

my comments, because first of all, I’m the only non-Jew on the 

Commission, I live in the only historic house in Sunny Isles Beach, 

and I was the chairman of the Historic [Preservation] Board for a 

number of years, as was my wife, before I became Commissioner. . . . 

I think a lot of us are missing the point. The fact is from my 

perspective the point is [sic] property rights. . . . [W]hether we like the 

rabbi or don’t like the rabbi, whether we like the owner of the 

property or don’t like the owner of the property, it’s really not the 

issue. Okay? The issue is if we are going to burden somebody’s 

property rights . . . . In this case I really believe that if we are going to 

burden somebody’s property rights, and this Commission is going to 

make a ruling here, and it’s going to set a precedent, and you have 

heard me say sometimes we are judge and jury up here, and I think we 

need to be very careful when we are doing that and really look at the 

core issue.

You know, emotions ran high here tonight. I think it’s very 

interesting and very impressive, but it’s not the core issue in my mind. 

The core issue is are we going to burden somebody’s property rights 

and take something away from them over some arguments that I think 

are a little flimsy personally.

I don’t really buy into the veracity of these arguments. . . . We 

have to discount our perspective toward the actual property and look 

at the fact that we are going to take away somebody’s property rights, 

whether it’s a temple, a single-family home, a rich condominium 

developer. I don’t care. Those things need to be protected, and I 

think we have to hold them, you know, at a very, very high standard if 

we are going to burden them.

Despite Commissioner Scholl’s comments, the City Commission voted 4 to 

1 a few minutes later to designate the Temple as a historic site and enacted 

Resolution No. 2010-1597, which affirmed the Preservation Board’s June decision 

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declaring the Temple to be the City’s first historic landmark. Commissioner Scholl 

was the lone dissenting vote. The Resolution provides, in pertinent part: 

In affirming the decision of the Board to designate the Temple as a 

historic site, the City Commission invites the Temple to submit plans 

for expansion that are consistent with the City Code and consistent 

with the designation of the Temple as a historic site. The City 

Commission expresses its belief that if the structural integrity of the 

items designated as historic are kept intact, the City Commission will 

not object to expansion plans that maintain the structural integrity of 

the historic items.

Following its official designation as historic, the Temple did not seek review 

of the merits of the City’s decision via the Florida state-court procedure of

common law certiorari. Instead, the Temple filed this lawsuit against the City and 

Norman Edelcup, alleging that the City’s designation of its property as a historic

landmark violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act 

(RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc to 2000cc–5; the Florida Religious Freedom 

Restoration Act of 1998 (FRFRA), Fla. Stat. §§ 761.01–.05; the Free Exercise 

Clause of the Florida Constitution; and the Equal Protection, Free Exercise, and 

Substantive Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution by operation of 

42 U.S.C. § 1983. In addition, the Temple sought a declaratory judgment that 

Code Section 171-5, the City Ordinance setting forth the standards for declaring 

historic landmarks in Sunny Isles Beach, is void for vagueness on its face. 

The district court dismissed the Temple’s complaint without prejudice after 

finding that the action was not yet ripe for review. In reaching that conclusion, the

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court relied upon the finality principles normally applied in takings cases, pursuant 

to which challenges to land use regulations “[are] not ripe until the government 

entity charged with implementing the regulations has reached a final decision 

regarding the application of the regulations to the property at issue.” Williamson 

Cnty. Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 

186, 105 S. Ct. 3108, 3116 (1985). The district court reasoned that because the 

Temple’s chief complaint was its inability to expand due to the historical 

designation, the Temple needed to submit building plans and request a waiver or 

variance from the City before its constitutional, RLUIPA, and FRFRA claims 

would become ripe for adjudication. Finally, the district court dismissed the 

Temple’s facial challenge to Section 171-5 of the City Code based upon 

“prudential considerations of ripeness,” which we take to mean that the district 

court dismissed the facial challenge so that it could be brought contemporaneously 

with the Temple’s as-applied claims when, and if, those claims ever became ripe. 

The Temple appealed.

II.

Born from both Article III and prudential concerns, “[r]ipeness is a 

justiciability doctrine designed ‘to prevent the courts, through avoidance of 

premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over 

administrative policies.’” Nat’l Park Hospitality Ass’n v. Dep’t of Interior, 538 

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U.S. 803, 807, 123 S. Ct. 2026, 2030 (2003) (quoting Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 

U.S. 136, 148, 87 S. Ct. 1507, 1515 (1967), abrogated on other grounds by 

Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 97 S. Ct. 980 (1977)). The doctrine serves the 

additional purpose of “shield[ing] agencies from judicial interaction ‘until an 

administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way 

by the challenging parties.’” Konikov v. Orange County, 410 F.3d 1317, 1322 

(11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (quoting Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 148–49, 87 S. Ct. 

at 1515). Put another way, “[h]aste makes waste, and the premature adjudication 

of legal questions compels courts to resolve matters, even constitutional matters, 

that may with time be satisfactorily resolved at the local level, and that may turn 

out differently in different settings.” Miles Christi Religious Order v. Township of 

Northville, 629 F.3d 533, 537 (6th Cir. 2010) (citations and internal quotation 

marks omitted).

The ripeness of a claim is a legal question that we review de novo. Harris v. 

Mexican Specialty Foods, Inc., 564 F.3d 1301, 1308 (11th Cir. 2009). “In deciding 

whether a claim is ripe for adjudication or review, we look primarily at two 

considerations: 1) the fitness of the issues for judicial decision, and 2) the hardship 

to the parties of withholding court consideration.” Midrash Sephardi, Inc. v. Town 

of Surfside, 366 F.3d 1214, 1224 (11th Cir. 2004). In addition, the unique demand

for a concrete factual context in certain land use disputes has led “[m]any of our 

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sister circuits” to apply Williamson County’s final decision requirement to certain 

RLUIPA claims challenging the application of land use regulations to a given 

property. Guatay Christian Fellowship v. County of San Diego, 670 F.3d 957, 977 

(9th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 423 (2012); see Miles Christi Religious 

Order, 629 F.3d at 537–38; Grace Cmty. Church v. Lenox Township, 544 F.3d 

609, 617–18 (6th Cir. 2008); Murphy v. New Milford Zoning Comm’n, 402 F.3d 

342, 351 (2d Cir. 2005) (applying Williamson County after making a two-part 

preliminary inquiry); see also Congregation Anshei Roosevelt v. Planning & 

Zoning Bd., 338 F. App’x 214, 219 (3d Cir. 2009) (affirming dismissal of RLUIPA 

claim as unripe based upon Williamson County). Williamson County provides that 

a landowner must “obtain[] a final decision regarding the application of the zoning 

ordinance . . . to its property” before his or her claim ripens into one justiciable in 

federal court. 473 U.S. at 186, 105 S. Ct. at 3116; see Guatay, 670 F.3d at 979 

(explaining that a final decision can be obtained by filing “a variance application, a 

special use permit application, or . . . a single appeal of a denied permit”). In 

addition to RLUIPA claims, many courts have likewise applied Williamson 

County’s finality principles to related constitutional and statutory challenges to the 

application of local land use regulations, including substantive due process, equal 

protection, and First Amendment claims. See, e.g., Guatay, 670 F.3d at 979; 

Murphy, 402 F.3d at 350 (“[W]e do not believe it necessary to distinguish the 

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RLUIPA claim from the First Amendment Free Exercise claim when it comes to 

our ripeness inquiry.”). 

Although we agree that “[t]he Williamson County ripeness test is a factsensitive inquiry that may, when circumstances warrant, be applicable to various 

types of land use challenges,” Murphy, 402 F.3d at 350, we think it an 

inappropriate tool for the specific facts presented here. See Roman Catholic 

Bishop of Springfield v. City of Springfield, — F.3d —, No. 11-1117, 2013 WL 

3782025, at *8 (1st Cir. July 22, 2013) (“While constitutional challenges to land 

use regulations may implicate Williamson County’s ripeness doctrine in some 

cases, we find no such necessary implication here.”); Dougherty v. Town of N. 

Hempstead Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 282 F.3d 83, 90 (2d Cir. 2002) (declining to 

apply Williamson County to First Amendment retaliation claim, in part because the 

plaintiff “suffered an injury at the moment the defendants revoked his permit, and 

[the plaintiff’s] pursuit of a further administrative decision would do nothing to 

further define his injury”). In our view, where, as here, the plaintiff alleges that the 

mere act of designating his or her property historic was motivated by 

discriminatory animus, Williamson County is inappropriate because the injury is 

complete upon the municipality’s initial act, and staying our hand would do 

nothing but perpetuate the plaintiff’s alleged injury. In such cases, we think 

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traditional notions of ripeness provide the appropriate mode of analysis, and so we 

apply them here. 

III.

As explained earlier, under traditional principles of ripeness, “we inquire 

into 1) whether the issues are fit for judicial decision and 2) the hardship to the 

parties of withholding court consideration.” Konikov, 410 F.3d at 1322. In the 

First Amendment context, our ripeness review is at its most charitable, and should 

any significant doubt prevail, we will resolve it in favor of justiciability. See 

Harrell v. Fla. Bar, 608 F.3d 1241, 1258 (11th Cir. 2010); Beaulieu v. City of 

Alabaster, 454 F.3d 1219, 1227 (11th Cir. 2006) (“Because this case involves an 

alleged violation of the First Amendment, our review of this suit’s ripeness is at its 

most permissive.”). Although the district court characterized the Temple’s 

complaint as primarily concerning its inability to expand because of the historic 

designation, a close reading of the complaint reveals that the Temple’s challenge is 

better characterized as alleging that the mere enactment of the resolution declaring 

it to be a historic landmark violates RLUIPA, FRFRA, and the Constitution.

4

 In 

 4 The Temple brings claims implicating RLUIPA’s three main provisions: (1) the 

substantial burden provision, (2) the equal terms provision, and (3) the nondiscrimination 

provision. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc. Under the substantial burden provision, “state action 

substantially burdening religious exercise must be justified as the least restrictive means of 

furthering a compelling governmental interest.” Midrash Sephardi, 366 F.3d at 1225 (internal 

quotation marks omitted); see § 2000cc(a)(1) (setting forth RLUIPA’s substantial burden 

provision). The equal terms provision, for its part, prohibits any government from “impos[ing]

or implement[ing] a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution 

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other words, the Temple alleges an injury stemming from the City’s initial act of 

designating it to be a historic site, not from the application of any land use 

regulation to its property. 

It is readily apparent under traditional notions of ripeness that, on the issue 

of whether the City designated the Temple to be a historic site for discriminatory 

reasons, the record is sufficiently developed so as to render that issue fit for 

judicial resolution. The Temple challenges the mere fact that it has been 

designated historic—so framed, that issue became as ripe as it will ever be the 

moment the Temple was initially designated a landmark. No further factual 

development is necessary. 

The First Circuit’s recent decision in Roman Catholic Bishop, a case bearing 

facts similar to those of the present case, fortifies our view. In that case, the 

Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield (Bishop) brought RLUIPA and 

constitutional claims against the City of Springfield (Springfield) challenging the 

“enforcement of a City ordinance that created a single-parcel historic district 

encompassing a church owned by [the Bishop].” 2013 WL 3782025, at *1. The 

 

on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.” § 2000cc(b)(1). Finally, 

the nondiscrimination clause forbids the “impos[ition] or implement[ation] [of] a land use 

regulation that discriminates against any assembly or institution on the basis of religion or 

religious denomination.” Id. § 2000cc(b)(2). Because the language of FRFRA is largely 

identical to that of RLUIPA’s substantial burden provision, the ripeness analysis under each 

statute is the same. See Fla. Stat. 761.03.

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court first held that “those of [the Bishop’s] claims which depend on the potential 

consequences of compliance with the ordinance are not ripe for adjudication, 

because [the Bishop] has not yet devised [his] plans for the church nor submitted 

any application to the [Springfield Historical Commission].” Id. However, insofar 

as the Bishop’s complaint could be read to allege “that the mere existence of the 

Ordinance create[d] a ripe controversy, [the court] f[ound] that [the Bishop’s] 

claims [we]re ripe.” Id. at *9. The court reasoned that because the challenges to 

the mere enactment of the landmarking resolution “rest[ed] solely on the existence 

of the Ordinance, no further factual development [was] necessary, and the 

Ordinance’s existence . . . confront[ed] [the Bishop] with a direct and immediate 

dilemma.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

We likewise conclude that the Temple’s RLUIPA, FRFRA, and 

constitutional attacks on the mere fact of its designation as a historic landmark

satisfy the fitness and hardship requirements of our traditional ripeness 

jurisprudence, and that the Temple’s claims in this regard are therefore ripe for 

judicial review. See id.; see also Eide v. Sarasota County, 908 F.2d 716, 726 (11th 

Cir. 1990) (“[I]f a landowner’s initial application for commercial zoning had been 

rejected . . . simply because the landowner was a redhead, the landowner’s 

arbitrary and capricious due process claim challenging that action would be ripe.”). 

The Temple alleges a present injury from the City’s discriminatory designation of 

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its property as historic, and to delay the resolution of these claims where no further 

factual development is possible would serve only to work further hardship upon 

the Temple. That we will not do. See Roman Catholic Bishop, 2013 WL 3782025, 

at *9 (holding that the designation of a church as a historic landmark was ripe in 

part because the designation “presently imposes delay, uncertainty, and expense, 

which is sufficient to show present injury”); see also Harrell, 608 F.3d at 1258 

(discerning no ripeness problems where plaintiff’s void-for-vagueness challenge 

claimed an immediate injury); Nat’l Adver. Co. v. City of Miami, 402 F.3d 1335, 

1339 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (“When a plaintiff is challenging a 

governmental act, the issues are ripe for judicial review if a plaintiff shows he has 

sustained, or is in immediate danger of sustaining, a direct injury as the result of 

that act.” (alternations and internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. Primera Iglesia 

Bautista Hispana of Boca Raton, Inc. v. Broward County, 450 F.3d 1295, 1304 

(11th Cir. 2006) (citing Midrash Sephardi for the notion that a zoning restriction 

applied to a property “constitutes an injury in fact” for purposes of standing). 

Moreover, the record is sufficiently developed—thanks in part to two lengthy 

quasi-judicial hearings held before the Preservation Board and the City 

Commission—that the issues we today deem ripe are clearly primed and at the 

ready for judicial resolution. See Konikov, 410 F.3d at 1322 (articulating the 

general ripeness inquiry, and explaining that this inquiry “permits us to determine 

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whether the claim is sufficiently mature, and the issues sufficiently defined and 

concrete, to permit effective decisionmaking by the court” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)). We therefore vacate the district court’s opinion dismissing as 

unripe the Temple’s challenges to the mere fact of its designation as a historic

site.

5

We hasten to note the limited nature of our decision in this case. We take no 

position whatever on the ultimate merits of the Temple’s challenge to its 

designation as a historic site. We merely hold that in the limited manner outlined 

above, the Temple’s complaint alleges a dispute sufficiently concrete to render the 

instant controversy ripe and justiciable without further delay. Whether the Temple 

can make a colorable showing that the City has violated the Constitution or the 

substantial burden and equal terms provisions of RLUIPA—and whether the 

Temple’s claims are even cognizable under the statutory and constitutional 

provisions it invokes in its complaint—are questions we leave in the capable hands 

of the district court for resolution in the first instance.

IV.

 5 The City urges us to affirm the district court on the alternative ground that the Temple 

lacks standing to bring these claims because the Temple apparently leases certain parts of the 

premises to the Beit Rambam congregation. We reject this argument. As the owner of a fee 

simple interest in the property, the Temple has allegedly suffered an injury—the designation of 

its property as a historic site—that imbues it with standing to bring the limited challenge we 

deem ripe here. See Primera Iglesia, 450 F.3d at 1304.

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The district court also dismissed the Temple’s facial void-for-vagueness 

challenge to City Ordinance Section 171-5 because, after finding the Temple’s asapplied challenges to the historical designation were unripe, the court concluded 

that prudential considerations counseled in favor of postponing judicial 

intervention on that sole remaining claim. Because we find that the Temple’s asapplied challenges to its designation as a historic site are ripe for adjudication, the 

prudential concerns that animated the dismissal of this count are no longer 

present.6

 We therefore also vacate the district court’s dismissal of the Temple’s 

facial challenge to the City’s historic site ordinance.

V.

We do not know who will ultimately prevail between the Temple and the 

City in this ongoing feud. That question—a merits one—is not ours to answer. 

We merely decide today that the claims enumerated in the Temple’s complaint are 

ripe for judicial adjudication. And while we embrace some hope that the parties 

might bury their strife before the next stage of federal litigation comes to pass, 

again on that score, only time will tell. At this juncture, it is enough to say that the 

 6 Williamson County’s finality principles do not apply to facial claims that a given 

regulation is constitutionally infirm. See Opulent Life Church v. City of Holly Springs, 697 F.3d 

279, 287 (5th Cir. 2012) (“The Supreme Court has held Williamson County to be inapplicable to 

facial challenges.” (citing Yee v. City of Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 533–34, 112 S. Ct. 1522, 1532

(1992))).

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order of the district court is vacated, and that the Temple’s challenges to the 

enactment of the historic designation are ripe for review.

VACATED AND REMANDED.

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