Opinion ID: 427394
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Burden on Government

Text: 43 The City of Miami Beach asserts a governmental interest in enforcing its zoning laws so as to preserve the residential quality of its RS-4 zones. By so doing the City protects the zones' inhabitants from problems of traffic, noise and litter, avoids spot zoning, and preserves a coherent land use zoning plan. The Supreme Court has acknowledged the importance of zoning objectives, stating that segregation of residential from nonresidential neighborhoods will increase the safety and security of home life, greatly tend to prevent street accidents, especially to children by reducing traffic and resulting confusion, ... decrease noise ... [and] preserve a more favorable environment in which to raise children. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 394, 47 S.Ct. 114, 120, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926). See also, Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, supra, 416 U.S. at 9, 94 S.Ct. at 1541. The City asserts a significant governmental objective in the case at bar. 44 Gatherings for organized religious services produce, as do other substantial gatherings of people, crowds, noise and disturbance. In fact, the parties' stipulations reveal that the City was acting pursuant to neighbors' complaints to end the disturbance caused by Appellees' conduct. Given this total inconsistency between the accomplishment of the City's policy objectives and the continuance of Appellees' conduct, the government action in this case easily passes the least restrictive means test. 45 Doctrine also requires that we consider the impact of a religious based exemption to zoning enforcement. In that regard we find that granting an exception would defeat City zoning policy in all neighborhoods where that exception was asserted. Maintenance of the residential quality of a neighborhood requires zoning law enforcement whenever that quality is threatened. Moreover, no principled way exists to limit an exception's costs just to the harm it would create in this case. Crowds of 500 would be as permissible as crowds of 50. Problems of administering the exception such as distinguishing valid religious claims from feigned ones, therefore, need not even be considered. A religion based exception would clearly and substantially impair the City's policy objectives. Together, the important objectives underlying zoning and the degree of infringement of those objectives caused by allowing the religious conduct to continue place a heavy weight on the government's side of the balancing scale.