Opinion ID: 146572
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unreasonable Limitations

Text: RLUIPA forbids a government from impos[ing] or implement[ing] a land use regulation that(A) totally excludes religious assemblies from a jurisdiction; or (B) unreasonably limits religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(3). The district court's instruction required RMCC to establish that the County's regulation, as applied or implemented, has the effect of depriving both [RMCC] and other religious institutions or assemblies of reasonable opportunities to practice their religion, including the use and construction of structures, within Boulder County. Aplt. App. 3090. The jury was instructed that it could find that the land use regulation... imposes unreasonable limits even though religious assemblies are not totally excluded from Boulder County. Id. The County claims that RMCC presented no evidence at trial of any limitations on opportunities for churches in Boulder County. Aplt. Br. at 35. It points to testimony by Graham Billingsley, the County's land use director, and Rosi Koopman, RMCC's expert and a previous employee of the County's land use office for twelve years, that the County had approved all other special use applications submitted by churches. Aplt.App. 4144, 4217. However, Ms. Koopman also testified that the County's land use scheme has made it more difficult for churches to operate in Boulder County, Id. at 4213, and has effectively left few sites for church construction, Id. at 4216-22. Another witness, Regina Hyatt, testified that she approached a County commissioner about the possibility of building a synagogue but was told that the County would only allow 100 seats because there will never be another mega church ... in Boulder County. Id. at 4543-44. Further testimony related that another congregation ran out of money going through the County's special use application process and abandoned its building project. Id. at 4178-79. RMCC presented evidence of its unsuccessful attempts to appease the County's concerns. Id. at 4174-75, 4204-06. The church took several steps to minimize the expansion's visual impact on the neighborhood, including hiring a surveyor to confirm that the church's proposed landscaping and berming would block all views of the expanded building from every neighboring home. Id. at 3736-40. The jury also learned of disparate treatment by the County land use staff between the Planning Commission and County Commission hearings. Typically, unless the applicant has changed its application, the County land use staff does not substantially change its report after the Planning Commission meeting, but rather adds a summary description. Id. at 4192. After RMCC's Planning Commission meeting, however, the County land use staff issued a new report with calculations based on erroneous lot sizes and building square footage and an analysis that Rosi Koopman found embellished significantly. Id. at 4192-98. Given the timing of the report's release just before the County Commission hearing, RMCC requested a postponement and spent more time and money responding to the report. Id. at 4198-4201. This testimony was more than adequate for a reasonable jury to find for RMCC on this claim. The jury could choose to weigh evidence of the County's land use regulation effectively excluding churches more heavily than the County's record of approving special use applications. The jury could also conclude that the County's implementation of the land use regulation was unreasonably restrictive in this case. Because sufficient evidence existed for the jury's unreasonable limitations verdict, the district court did not err when it denied the County's motion for judgment as a matter of law.