Opinion ID: 2585351
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Does the Exemption from Landmark Restrictions Violate Article XVI, Section 5?

Text: The Court of Appeal rejected plaintiffs' argument that exempting noncommercial property owned by religious entities from the restrictions of landmark status violates the ban on aid to religion found in article XVI, section 5. It reasoned that article XVI, section 5 does not prohibit indirect, remote, or incidental benefits that have a primary public purpose. Article XVI, section 5 provides: Neither the Legislature, nor any county, city and county, township, school district, or other municipal corporation, shall ever make an appropriation, or pay from any public fund whatever, or grant anything to or in aid of any religious sect, church, creed, or sectarian purpose, or help to support or sustain any school, college, university, hospital, or other institution controlled by any religious creed, church, or sectarian denomination whatever nor shall any grant or donation of personal property or real estate ever be made by the State, or any city, city and county, town, or other municipal corporation for any religious creed, church, or sectarian purpose whatever; provided, that nothing in this section shall prevent the Legislature granting aid pursuant to Section 3 of Article XVI. [8] In California Educational Facilities Authority v. Priest (1974) 12 Cal.3d 593, 605, footnote 12, 116 Cal.Rptr. 361, 526 P.2d 513, this court rejected an argument that article XVI, section 5, then article XIII, section 24, prohibits only direct appropriation or expenditure of public funds to support sectarian institutions: We do not read section 24 so narrowly. Its terms forbid granting `anything' to or in aid of sectarian purposes, and prohibit public help to `support or sustain' a sectarian-controlled school. The section thus forbids more than the appropriation or payment of public funds to support sectarian institutions. It bans any official involvement, whatever its form, which has the direct, immediate, and substantial effect of promoting religious purposes. Plaintiffs argue that the Court of Appeal erred in dismissing their claim that the exemption created by sections 25373 and 37361 violates the ban on aid to religious organizations or institutions controlled by religious entities. They contend that the benefit of exemption from landmark status cannot be characterized as indirect, remote, or incidental to a primarily public purpose. As the Court of Appeal observed, however, permitting a religious entity to exempt its noncommercial property from landmark designation status simply leaves the property in the status it otherwise occupied. While there may be a benefit as compared to properties that are subjected to landmark designation, neither the state nor the local governmental entity expends funds, or provides any monetary support, for the exempted property or its owner. Nothing in California Educational Facilities Authority v. Priest, supra, 12 Cal.3d at page 605, footnote 12, 116 Cal. Rptr. 361, 526 P.2d 513, suggests that exempting these properties from the restrictions of landmark status violates article XVI, section 5. The exemption does not give rise to any governmental involvement in the entities or institutions that benefit from the exemption, and even assuming that some parochial schools will benefit from the exemption, that benefit is not the support contemplated by and banned by article XVI, section 5. We conclude therefore, that no provision of the federal or state Constitution is violated by the Legislature's creation of exemptions from local landmark preservations laws for property owned by religious entities. As the Court of Appeal held, these exemptions simply free the owners to use the property as they would have done had the property not been designated a historic landmark.