Source: https://www.jbwpc.com/Articles/Zoning-and-Land-Use-Religious-Uses/LAND-USE-REGULATION-OF-RELIGIOUS-USES.shtml
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:38:11+00:00

Document:
The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, in Jefferson, Writings, 285-286 (The Library of America, 1984).
It seems that when First Amendment issues are raised in zoning and land use disputes, most often the use in issue involves adult entertainment or outdoor advertising. But, of course, the First Amendment also encompasses the right that many historians would argue most significantly contributed to the formation of our nation: the freedom of religion.1 And, perhaps because of the mega-church phenomenon or changes in societal views towards religious observance, religious institutions may more frequently than in the past be looked upon by some as a use that should be regulated and restricted. The hot issue in courtrooms in this area over the last few years has been the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000- RLUIPA for short.
This federal statute was adopted with the stated intention of protecting the free exercise of religion and of combating perceived local government attempts to zone out churches, either selectively or as a whole. Counsel for both local governments and religious organizations should be familiar with RLUIPA's terms; at the same time, it is important to remember the various State and federal constitutional provisions that RLUIPA was adopted to vindicate. With that in mind, this paper will explore the Georgia and federal constitutions' treatment of the freedom of conscience, as well as RLUIPA.
We are all familiar with this bedrock statement in the Constitution, and that, while it specifically is directed to Congress, it was made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In its two directives, the First Amendment requires a policy of neutrality: the government may neither establish a religion nor prevent the exercise of any religion. These two clauses have generated considerable litigation. Since land use regulations restricting churches are most likely to confront the free exercise clause, this paper will focus on that provision, leaving the establishment clause for another day.
The challenged law in that case was a criminal statute applying generally and neutrally to everyone, and was not aimed at religious believers as a group. The Court declined to apply the strict scrutiny test – which asks whether the challenged regulation is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest – to such a law of general applicability. Thus, a law that may incidentally burden an individual's religious exercise, but which is generally applicable rather than aimed at religious exercise, will normally not run afoul of the free exercise clause.
These U.S. Supreme Court decisions show us that land use laws that burden religious exercise, like other laws, must be neutral and of general applicability in order to avoid strict scrutiny. Of course, there appears to be significant room to argue whether a law is neutral and of general applicability, and in many cases that will likely come down to a factual, rather than a facial, determination.
Congress added a new dimension to this issue by adopting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), which attempted to impose the strict scrutiny test on all laws burdening religious exercise, regardless of whether or not they were neutral or generally applicable.8 RFRA was short-lived, however; it was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as violating Congress' Fourteenth Amendment Enforcement Power in City of Boerne v. Flores.9 Congress replied with the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.
Thus, RLUIPA is limited to situations where Congress can act within the scope of its power to regulate the recipients of federal funding, under its power to regulate interstate commerce, or consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's Smith and Lukumi cases, the regulation involves an individualized assessment and therefore is not a law of general applicability.
This shows a belief that local governments across the country are cloaking regulations substantially burdening the free exercise of religion in generally applicable zoning ordinances in order to avoid challenge under the Smith case.
As the Eleventh Circuit went on to hold, in light of the other substantive provisions of RLUIPA, this does not mean that a zoning ordinance places a substantial burden just because it limits churches to certain zoning classifications.14 Similarly, the Eleventh Circuit has held that requiring a religious institution to apply for a special use permit does not constitute a substantial burden.15 Therefore, although the issue of what does and what does not constitute a substantial burden has not yet fully been fleshed out, it appears that more is required than simply subjecting a religious institution to land use regulation.
Under this interpretation, the Eleventh Circuit found that a zoning ordinance that prohibited churches in zoning districts where private clubs and lodges were allowed violated the equal terms provision.
beginning with the facial unequal treatment exemplified by the Midrash case above, where the ordinance treats religious assemblies less favorably than secular assemblies. Second, an ordinance that does not violate the equal terms provision on its face might still be void if is shows "religious gerrymandering." The Court pointed to the Lukumi case as example of an ordinance that was facially neutral, but which hid an animus against religious exercise. In order to prove such a case, the plaintiff "would have to show that the challenged zoning regulation separates permissible from impermissible assemblies or institutions in a way that burdens 'almost only' religious uses."19 The third potential claim is that a facially-neutral regulation is applied in a discriminatory manner, such as if a regulation required variances for all assemblies, but in practice variances are only granted to secular uses, or if a certain congregation was singled out for denial of the variance. Thus, the equal terms provision must be carefully considered, because it provides a number a grounds for challenging a local government ordinance or action.
This is clearly targeting at attempts to zone out churches. While subsection (A) appears to need no clarification, subsection (B) is very interesting. It creates an issue of fact as to whether a regulation's limitation of religious uses is reasonable. It also raises an issue common to practitioners of adult entertainment litigation: what reasons, and what studies and evidence, did the local government rely upon if it chooses to limit the zones in which a religious institution may be located. This issue, too, has not yet been much explored in the Eleventh Circuit.
An important point to keep in mind is that the strict scrutiny test and the jurisdictional nexus provisions are in subsection (a) of 42 USC 2000cc, the same section that provides the substantial burden provision discussed above. The other three substantive provisions are located in subsection (b) of that statute. It could be argued from the plain language then that the strict scrutiny and jurisdictional nexus provisions only apply to the substantial burden provision, and thus if a land use regulation were discriminatory under one or more of the subsection (b) provisions, it would per se be void, without the need of applying the strict scrutiny test. However, the Eleventh Circuit has determined that the strict scrutiny test does applies to the subsection (b) provisions, following the Smith and Lukumi cases that predated RLUIPA.23 In the end, this may be a distinction with little difference, as most restrictions will fail under the strict scrutiny test.
With that in mind, what must a local government do or not do to avoid RLUIPA challenges? It is clear that RLUIPA does allow regulation of churches, and does not necessarily require more beneficial treatment of churches than of secular uses. However, a land use regulation may not treat secular assemblies and institutions more favorably than religious institutions. Thus, a zoning ordinance that allows secular assemblies in a given district but not religious assemblies may be struck down. A common pitfall involves permitting certain secular assemblies as a matter of right, but requiring churches to obtain special use permits. Similarly, it would be a violation to place a minimum acreage requirement on churches but not secular assemblies. These would all be facial violations; at the same time, it is clear that if local government action under a facially-neutral ordinance results in disparate treatment, then RLUIPA will likely have been violated. For example, if all religious and secular assemblies require a special use permit under the ordinance, but in practice the local government only grants special use permits to secular uses, a RLUIPA claim will probably lie. Similarly, it may be a violation if special use permits are granted to mainline religions, but not to a certain sect or denomination. And it might be a violation if a facially-neutral requirement, such as a minimum number of parking spaces, were strictly applied to a certain church, but was overlooked in regards to secular or other religious assemblies. Thus, in a nutshell, RLUIPA requires a local government to allow religious exercise, within reasonable limits, and to treat religious institutions at least as favorably as secular assemblies.
This is a profound statement, both in its philosophical scope and in its historical context. England itself had an established religion, the Anglican Church, and the violent wars of religion, when the government was wrested back and forth from Catholics to Protestants, was a matter of recent memory. Nevertheless, this grant contains both a guarantee of liberty of conscience, the right to believe according to one's own dictates, and (except for Catholics) freedom of exercise, the right to act accordingly. Thus, the Royal Charter treated the two rights separately, and granted both. This separate treatment of the liberty of conscience and free exercise was incorporated into Georgia's constitutional history following the Declaration of Independence, and exists to this day.
Thus, the framers of Georgia's constitution went to greater detail than that in the U.S. Constitution to protect religious freedom and guarantee religious neutrality on the part of the government.
This quotation rings with the same note as the quotation from Thomas Jefferson that headlines this paper: the right of free exercise was never relinquished by the people to their government, and so the government has no power to regulate the exercise of religion. However, the government does have the police power to provide for the public welfare; where the free exercise of religion clearly threatens the public welfare, then there is power to regulate.
This is consistent with the majority rule among the states as to how religious institutions may be treated by zoning ordinances. Many states hold religious exercise can only be regulated by zoning to the extent that it is consistent with the public welfare and morals. Since churches and the like generally have as a fundamental purpose to support morality and public welfare, it can be difficult to justify regulation of churches as a class of use. For example, the majority rule states that churches may not be absolutely excluded from residential areas.30 In the two cases on point, the Georgia courts have adopted this rule, albeit without a great deal of reasoning.31 The Georgia Supreme Court did uphold a local government's application of a special use permit requirement on religious uses in residential areas in Fulton County v. Congregation of Anshei Chesed32, however, the reasoning of the case focused on the appropriate standard for mandamus review of local government action rather than constitutional free exercise principles.
As is so often the case in the law, careful study, rather than providing certainty, only raises more questions. But there are some conclusions that can be taken from the current state of the law on land use regulation and free religious exercise. First, zoning ordinances must be neutral on their face, and neutral in their application. Second, if the local government wishes to regulate a religious use by its religious nature, it very likely will face strict scrutiny, especially if the ordinance is not neutral on its face.
For guidance, practitioners should consider the lessons learned from local government attempts to regulate signs and adult entertainment, the First Amendment hot issues. Is the ordinance aimed at secondary effects, or is it aimed at religion? Is the determination that the religious institution will have negative impacts on the community supported by the record? Ultimately, as is the case with sign regulation, it may be safest to simply regulate the size of religious institutions, to make sure that they are consistent with the surrounding community, rather than the religious use itself.
1Brian Moynahan, The Faith, A History of Christianity, Chapter 23 (2002).
8 42 USC § 2000bb et seq.
12See generally 46 Cong. Rec. S6678-02; see also H.R. REP. 106-219, H.R. Rep. No. 219, 106TH Cong., 1ST Sess. 1999; see also 146 Cong.Rec. E1564-01.
17 Midrash, supra, at 1230-1231.
21See Hollywood Community Synagogue, Inc. v. City of Hollywood, Fla., 430 F.Supp.2d 1296 at 1320, (S.D.Fla.,2006).
25Georgia Constitution, Article 1, § 1 ¶ 3.
26Georgia Constitution, Art. 1, § 1, ¶ 4.
27Georgia Constitution, Art. 1, § 1, ¶ 9.
28 Georgia Constitution, Art. 1, § 2, ¶ 7.
30 Ziegler, Rathkopf's Law of Zoning and Planning, § 29:22.

References: v. 
 v. 
 § 2000
 v. 
 § 1
 Art. 1
 § 1
 Art. 1
 § 1
 Art. 1
 § 2
 § 29