Court Opinion

ID: 9951158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 18:01:29.146502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:37:40.510580
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 23-1175
EDGEWOOD HIGH SCHOOL OF THE SACRED HEART,
INCORPORATED,
                                     Plaintiff-Appellant,

                                 v.

CITY OF MADISON, WISCONSIN, et al.,
                                             Defendants-Appellees.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
                   Western District of Wisconsin.
        No. 3:21-cv-00118-wmc — William M. Conley, Judge.
                    ____________________

  ARGUED SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 — DECIDED MARCH 15, 2024
               ____________________

   Before WOOD, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.
    SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Upset by decisions allegedly limit-
ing its installation and use of nighttime lights at its athletics
field, Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart sued the
City of Madison under the Religious Land Use and Institu-
tionalized Persons Act, the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S.
Constitution, and Wisconsin law. Following discovery the
district court entered summary judgment for the City,
2                                                 No. 23-1175

concluding that Edgewood’s claims suffered in the main from
fatal evidentiary shortcomings and in other places from mis-
understandings of governing legal principles. We agree and
affirm.
                               I
                              A
   This case is messy on many levels. To help frame the issues
before us, we begin with an overview of the municipal zoning
ordinance that features most heavily in the facts.
    In 2013 the City of Madison rezoned the campuses of ma-
jor educational and medical institutions as “Campus-Institu-
tional Districts.” See Madison General Ordinance (M.G.O.)
§ 28.097 (2013). The new zoning aimed to support those insti-
tutions’ “growth and development needs” while still “pro-
tect[ing] the livability and vitality of adjacent neighbor-
hoods.” Id. § 28.097(1). Any institution zoned as a Campus-
Institutional District received the option of proposing a “cam-
pus master plan” to outline a long-term blueprint for land de-
velopment and use. A master plan had to describe the “[e]xist-
ing conditions” on campus—to include “[l]and uses and
buildings” and “[n]atural features and significant open-space
areas”—and identify “[p]roposed conditions” relating to
“[f]uture needs/capital improvements,” “[l]andscape treat-
ment,” and “[o]pen-space areas and other open-space uses.”
Id. § 28.097(5)(c). The plan also had to provide a “summary of
previous planning efforts by the institution in conjunction
with the City and/or abutting neighborhoods.” Id.
§ 28.097(5)(a).
   Approval of a master plan by the City’s Plan Commission
and Common Council meant that the institution would be
No. 23-1175                                                        3

exempted from having to seek a conditional use permit for
any building projects covered by the plan for a period of ten
years. See id. § 28.097(2), (5)(c), (6), (7)(c). This exemption like-
wise meant, among other things, that covered projects would
not require a public hearing to receive municipal approval.
The new Campus-Institutional District ordinance instead ac-
counted for the community’s interests by conditioning the
City’s approval of a master plan on the degree to which the
plan “serve[d] the public interest” and satisfied the “intent”
of the overall ordinance. See id. § 28.097(6). Once approved, a
master plan became an enacted ordinance of the City of Mad-
ison.
    To alter an enacted master plan—by, for example, updat-
ing the “proposed use of [an] identified open space[]”—an in-
stitution had to obtain the approval of the City’s Plan Com-
mission. Id. § 28.097(8). There were two exceptions. First, “mi-
nor” alterations did not require Plan Commission approval.
Id. Second, “substantial” changes to the original master plan
required both Plan Commission and Common Council ap-
proval. Id.
                                 B
   Established in 1881, Edgewood High School is a private
Catholic high school situated between two residential neigh-
borhoods in the City of Madison. Edgewood’s mission is to
“educate the whole student—mind, body, and soul,” to which
end the school promotes Dominican values as part of a college
preparatory curriculum. The high school also offers more
than twenty athletic programs. Its campus includes a track
and athletic field that the high school has used for decades—
and, indeed, throughout the relevant time period—to host
daytime practices and competitions.
4                                                  No. 23-1175

    Because the field does not have lights, Edgewood athletes
have historically played nighttime soccer and football games
at alternate locations in Madison. Another Campus-Institu-
tional District institution, Madison West High School (a pub-
lic school), likewise uses alternate locations for nighttime
games because it does not have lights at its own field.
    In 2014 Edgewood submitted a detailed master plan under
the City of Madison’s Campus-Institutional District ordi-
nance. The plan was the “product of extensive engagement,
collaboration, and effort” between Edgewood and the sur-
rounding community. In its plan, Edgewood described a ten-
year vision for the development and use of its land, identify-
ing a series of proposed buildings and parking structures. In
no place did the plan identify outdoor lighting for the athletic
field as a proposed use, however. Nor did the plan identify
the hosting of games or other competitions as an existing or
proposed use of the athletic field. Instead, the plan more nar-
rowly provided that Edgewood used its “[a]thletic field” for
“team practices, [and] physical education classes.”
    The present controversy began in 2017, when Edgewood
informed the City of Madison that it planned to install lights,
seating, restrooms, and concession stands at its athletic field.
A city alder informed the school that it would need to amend
its master plan before pursuing the project. Edgewood sub-
mitted a proposal to add the amenities but tabled the amend-
ment to its master plan after concluding that Madison’s Com-
mon Council was unlikely to grant approval. At that point
Edgewood attempted to sidestep the master plan process en-
tirely by applying instead for a standalone lighting permit un-
der the City’s general lighting ordinance, Madison General
Ordinance § 10.085, which required only that the lighting
No. 23-1175                                                    5

comply with certain technical specifications and “all other
codes and regulations as applicable.” Id. § 10.085(1), (3), (4).
    The City denied Edgewood’s separate application for a
lighting permit. The City Attorney explained that because
Edgewood’s existing master plan mentioned neither lighting
nor competitive field use, the school could not install lighting
for nighttime games without violating "other [applicable]
codes and regulations.” See M.G.O. § 10.085(1). The City
viewed Edgewood’s master plan, in other words, as an appli-
cable municipal regulation under the lighting ordinance. The
City’s denial of the lighting permit on this ground meant that
Edgewood could not avoid seeking an approved modification
of its master plan simply by applying for a standalone permit
under Madison’s general lighting ordinance. The school
would have to seek the Plan Commission’s approval to alter
its master plan after all.
    When neighbors later complained that Edgewood was
hosting games on its field (rather than just practices or physi-
cal education classes as described in the high school’s master
plan), the City issued notices of violation. Edgewood ap-
pealed the notices even though they did not impose fines or
any other sanctions. The Zoning Board of Appeals upheld the
notices, but the City Attorney later wrote to Edgewood to
clarify that no further action would be taken unless the school
was given ample notice. Since then, Edgewood has continued
to play daytime games on its field, a point the high school
acknowledged during oral argument.
    Shortly after issuing the notices of violation, the City sug-
gested that Edgewood come into full compliance with munic-
ipal law by repealing its master plan so that it could use its
field for competitions. At that time, Campus-Institutional
6                                                  No. 23-1175

District institutions without master plans enjoyed default
“rights of use” with respect to “outdoor sports and recrea-
tional facilities” that extended to hosting games. Repeal of the
master plan, moreover, would have allowed Edgewood to
comply with the City’s lighting ordinance if the high school
reapplied for a traditional lighting permit. Edgewood could
not violate the master plan as an “applicable regulation,” in
other words, if the master plan no longer governed the
school’s land-use decisions. Believing that nighttime games
were finally within reach, Edgewood accepted the City’s ad-
vice and requested a repeal of its master plan.
    But nighttime games were still not to be. In October 2019,
while Edgewood’s proposed repeal of its master plan was
pending, the City amended the Campus-Institutional District
ordinance to require any institution without a master plan to
obtain conditional-use approval for the “establishment, im-
provement, or modification of any [right of use] occurring
outside of an enclosed building.” M.G.O. § 28.097(2)(d)
(2019). The City’s Common Council voted to repeal Edge-
wood’s master plan shortly thereafter. As an institution with-
out a master plan, Edgewood believed that the newly revised
Campus-Institutional District ordinance now required a con-
ditional-use permit for the lighting addition.
    So Edgewood applied for a permit in March 2020. The
Plan Commission denied the request, finding that the permit-
ting standards had not been met because the high school’s in-
stallation of lights “would have a substantial negative impact
on the uses, values, and enjoyment” of neighboring proper-
ties, and because “no mitigating measures [were] proposed”
to limit the negative impacts, such as “noise barriers” or
No. 23-1175                                                    7

“limits on events.” The City’s Common Council affirmed the
Plan Commission’s decision.
   Edgewood’s athletic field remains without lights to this
day.
                               C
    In February 2021 Edgewood sued the City of Madison,
Plan Commission, and others under the Religious Land Use
and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000cc et seq., alleging that the City selectively enforced its
Campus-Institutional District and general lighting ordinances
in violation of the statute’s “equal terms” and “substantial
burden” provisions. See id. § 2000cc(a)(1), (b)(1). The RLUIPA
claims and a related claim under the Free Exercise Clause of
the U.S. Constitution survived dismissal, along with a supple-
mental property-based claim under Wisconsin law.
    Following discovery, the district court entered summary
judgment on all claims for the City and other named (and re-
lated) defendants. As for the RLUIPA claims, the district court
concluded that the evidence in the record did not reveal a ma-
terial issue of fact as to whether the City treated Edgewood
less favorably than other institutions. The district court fur-
ther concluded that Edgewood was not substantially bur-
dened in the exercise of its religious mission by not being able
to install lights at its athletic field for nighttime games.
    The district court bypassed Edgewood’s Free Exercise
claim, explaining that RLUIPA provides greater protection
than the First Amendment. The district court also resolved the
state law vested rights claim in the City’s favor because Edge-
wood’s lighting permit application did not strictly comply
with all relevant zoning ordinances at the time of its
8                                                     No. 23-1175

submission, as required in order for the right to a permit to
vest under Wisconsin law.
    Edgewood now appeals.
                                II
    Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institution-
alized Persons Act in 2000 to provide “broad protection” for
religious exercise. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-3(g). The statute re-
quires municipalities to offer “equal terms” of land use to re-
ligious and nonreligious institutions, id. § 2000cc(b)(1), and to
avoid placing a “substantial burden” on religious exercise
though zoning regulations, id. § 2000cc(a)(1). The statute in-
cludes a private right of action to “obtain appropriate relief
against a government.” Id. § 2000cc-2(a).
                                A
    RLUIPA’s equal terms provision states that “[n]o govern-
ment shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a
manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less
than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.”
Id. § 2000cc(b)(1). The provision means what it says: a munic-
ipality violates the equal terms mandate upon treating a reli-
gious land use “worse” than a comparable nonreligious use,
“whether or not the discrimination imposes a substantial bur-
den on the religious use[].” Digrugilliers v. Consol. City of Indi-
anapolis, 506 F.3d 612, 616 (7th Cir. 2007).
   Edgewood presses two distinct reasons for why it believes
the City of Madison violated RLUIPA’s equal terms provi-
sion. We address each in turn.
   1. Hosting Games on the Field Generally. Edgewood’s first
contention is both broad and confusing. The high school tells
No. 23-1175                                                  9

us that the City has altogether prohibited it from hosting any
and all games—day or night—on its athletic fields. The con-
tention caught the district court off guard because the discov-
ery record contains unrefuted evidence that Edgewood has
long used its field to host daytime games. By the district
court’s measure, the whole case was about the installation of
lights for night games, not the playing of games during the
day. So it understandably made little sense to the district
court that the high school was somehow trying to root a
RLUIPA equal terms claim in the counterfactual position that
the City barred daytime use of the field for games. In the end,
the district court rejected this aspect of Edgewood’s claim on
the merits and entered summary judgment for the City.
    We too have some confusion about Edgewood’s focus on
daytime games. The high school’s counsel confirmed during
oral argument that Edgewood has long hosted (and continues
to play) daytime games on its field. To our mind, then, Edge-
wood’s claim cannot be about any past inability to use the
field for that purpose. Perhaps what Edgewood is saying is
that it faced a risk of curtailed daytime use of the field that
amounted to unequal treatment.
    We do not see it. All indications are that the City’s past
issuance of notices of violation amounted to nothing more
than paper warnings. They were unaccompanied by fines or
any other form of sanction or penalty relating to present or
future use of the field. Indeed, the record shows that the City
even promised not to enforce the notices of violation without
first providing Edgewood ample notice. But that never hap-
pened. And once Edgewood withdrew its master plan, there
seems to have been no concern on the City’s part about the
high school hosting daytime events at its field.
10                                                       No. 23-1175

    This aspect of Edgewood’s appeal need not detain us fur-
ther. The proper focus instead is on Edgewood’s efforts to in-
stall lights for nighttime events, the subject to which we now
turn.
    2. Nighttime Lighting of the Field. The second strand of
Edgewood’s equal terms claim gets much closer to the heart
of the case. It is here that the high school tells us many times
over that its focus is on its inability to receive permission to
install lights to allow the hosting of nighttime games on its
athletic field.
    Edgewood approaches this dimension of its claim by in-
sisting that we concentrate on the City’s denial of the high
school’s application for a general lighting permit. Notice what
we did not say there: Edgewood is not tethering this aspect of
its RLUIPA equal terms claim to anything involving its status
as a master plan institution under the City’s Campus-Institu-
tional District ordinance. It instead wants us to conclude that
it should be able to proceed to trial on the theory that the City
treated the high school worse (or, in statutory terms, on less
than equal terms) than institutions within Madison that did
receive a general permit to install lights at their institutions.
Those two institutions, Edgewood says, are Vel Phillips Me-
morial High School and the University of Wisconsin at
Madison.
    But the deficiency the high school cannot overcome, as the
district court recognized, is that Edgewood—at all relevant
points in time—was never comparable from a regulatory per-
spective to Memorial High School or UW-Madison. See River
of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Vill. of Hazel Crest, Ill., 611 F.3d 367,
373 (7th Cir. 2010) (explaining that an equal terms claimant
No. 23-1175                                                  11

must show differential treatment from the standpoint of an
“accepted zoning criterion”).
    When Edgewood applied for a general lighting permit in
February 2019, the high school was regulated for land-use
purposes as a master plan institution under the City of Madi-
son’s Campus-Institutional District ordinance. That regula-
tory reality had consequences: Edgewood could pursue those
development projects enumerated within its master plan, but
the high school could not pursue other capital improvements
without amending that same plan pursuant to the process
outlined in the City’s regulations. Remember that Edgewood
at one point pursued an amendment, but then withdrew that
request and instead sought to receive permission to install
lights at its field by receiving a lighting permit under the
City’s general land-use regulations—in other words, outside
the terms and conditions of the Campus-Institutional District
ordinance governing master plan institutions. The City did
not permit the bypass and instead insisted that Edgewood
pursue lighting permission within the parameters of the mas-
ter plan regulatory scheme.
    With the factual record straight, we cannot conclude that
the district court committed error in entering summary judg-
ment for the City on this aspect of Edgewood’s equal terms
claim. The district court saw the record as clear (and not ma-
terially disputed) on the point that matters most—whether
Edgewood was able to identify another master plan institu-
tion (be it Memorial High School, UW-Madison, or another
local institution) that received permission to install lighting.
Edgewood failed to make this showing, for Memorial and
UW-Madison were not master plan institutions at the time
they sought permission to install lighting at their fields. In
12                                                    No. 23-1175

short, Edgewood has not brought anything to our attention
(at least with any clarity) to create a jury issue on this aspect
of its equal terms claim.
    That evidentiary shortfall proved fatal because, as the dis-
trict court explained, it left the high school without any way
of showing a jury that the City of Madison applied the same
land-use regulations one way for Edgewood and another
more favorable way for a comparable institution. See Vision
Church v. Village of Long Grove, 468 F.3d 975, 1003 (7th Cir.
2006) (rejecting a RLUIPA equal terms claim because “the fact
that [plaintiff church] and the [secular] elementary schools
were subject to different standards because of the year in
which their special use applications were considered compels
the conclusion that there was no unequal treatment”). In the
final analysis, Edgewood was a master plan institution
throughout the relevant period and was not comparably situ-
ated—for municipal land-use regulatory purposes—to Me-
morial High School or UW-Madison.
    In a final effort to salvage its equal terms claim, Edgewood
resorts to highlighting the City’s circuitous and sometimes-
contradictory handling of its permit application. The high
school sees the treatment it received as more than frustrating
red-taping and instead affirmative proof of bad faith on the
City’s part. From there it urges the conclusion that the bad
faith shows unequal treatment within the meaning of
RLUIPA.
    We cannot get there. At bottom, we think Edgewood is re-
ally just trying to say that the City gave it the runaround with
respect to the installation of lights at its field. But getting the
runaround and being discriminated against are not neces-
sarily one and the same. Edgewood’s feeling that it was given
No. 23-1175                                                   13

a hard time does not amount to a RLUIPA violation without
evidence that the City treated a secular institution more favor-
ably during the permit application process. Indeed, absent
any showing of unequal treatment, Edgewood’s claim sounds
more properly in due process or takings. With the evidence in
the record not allowing a reasonable juror to find that the City
treated Edgewood’s lighting application worse than compa-
rable applications, we affirm the district court’s entry of sum-
mary judgment for the City on the equal terms claim.
                               B
   Edgewood’s substantial burden claim under the Act like-
wise fails.
    RLUIPA prohibits the government from “impos[ing] or
implement[ing] a land use regulation in a manner that im-
poses a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a per-
son, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the
government demonstrates that imposition of the burden …
(A) is in furtherance of a compelling government interest; and
(B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling
governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)(1). Congress de-
fined “religious exercise” as “any exercise of religion, whether
or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious be-
lief.” Id. § 2000c-5. The enactment further provides that “[t]he
use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose
of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exer-
cise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the
property for that purpose.” Id. § 2000cc-5(7)(B).
   Against this definition of “religious exercise,” we remain
doubtful that the hosting of nighttime athletic competitions
constitutes “religious” activity. The district court put the same
14                                                    No. 23-1175

observation this way: “[w]hether or not athletics can be found
important to Edgewood’s Catholic educational mission says
little, if anything, about the need to use the field at night.” We
can put our doubts to the side, though, because the City effec-
tively conceded on appeal that the hosting of games at Edge-
wood’s athletic field constitutes religious activity. We accept
that concession for purposes of this appeal.
    It would be a bridge too far, however, to conclude that
Edgewood’s inability to host nighttime competitions at its
field imposes a “substantial burden” on its Catholic mission.
Congress did not define “substantial burden” in RLUIPA, but
we have examined the term in the land-use context and con-
cluded that the availability of other adequate properties to
host religious activities may defeat a substantial burden
claim. See World Outreach Conference Ctr. v. City of Chicago, 591
F.3d 531, 539 (7th Cir. 2009) (declining to find a substantial
burden under RLUIPA where the plaintiff did not receive per-
mission to demolish a historic building on its property be-
cause there was other empty space on campus to construct its
intended new building).
    Several other circuits have likewise found no substantial
burden under § 2000cc(a)(1) where, as here, adequate alterna-
tive locations were available for religious exercise. See, e.g.,
Marianist Province of United States v. City of Kirkwood, 944 F.3d
996, 1001 (8th Cir. 2019) (concluding that there was no sub-
stantial burden where the plaintiff high school was “limited
to using its baseball field only during daylight hours, as it has
for decades … [where] Vianney has alternative times and lo-
cations, such as at its baseball field during the day and its foot-
ball and soccer facility at night, to carry out its religious mis-
sion”); Livingston Christian Sch. v. Genoa Charter Twp., 858 F.3d
No. 23-1175                                                    15

996, 1009 (6th Cir. 2017) (observing that “families [of students]
with especially tight budgets or busy schedules might find
burdensome the additional expenses and time constraints” of
having to drive an extra 12 miles to school, “but this does not
mean that such additional expense and time is so great as to
constitute a substantial burden on [the plaintiff’s] religious
mission”); Midrash Sephardi, Inc. v. Town of Surfside, 366 F.3d
1214, 1228 (11th Cir. 2004) (concluding that there was no sub-
stantial burden where congregants were required to walk sev-
eral extra blocks to an alternative synagogue site).
    The alternative venues in this case are in the same general
community within the City of Madison as Edgewood and, ac-
cording to the evidence developed during discovery, remain
available to host nighttime events. Given these alternative
sites, we cannot see how the City’s zoning decisions imposed
a substantial burden on Edgewood’s religious mission. In-
deed, the high school has never hosted nighttime competi-
tions on its athletic field but has carried out its religious mis-
sion all the same for over 100 years. And all indications are
that Edgewood can continue to host competitions at its home
field during the daytime hours.
    Switching tacks, Edgewood insists that it endured “delay,
uncertainty, and expense” in pursuing lighting at its athletic
field to the point of suffering a “substantial burden” on the
exercise of its Catholic faith. We suggested that “delay, uncer-
tainty, and expense” may contribute to a substantial burden
in Saints Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church, Inc. v. City
of New Berlin, but under very different facts. See 396 F.3d 895,
901 (7th Cir. 2005). The religious institution in New Berlin
sought to build a new church on already-purchased land in a
nearby city because its congregation was outgrowing the
16                                                    No. 23-1175

present facility. See id. at 898. The city committed a series of
legal errors during the rezoning process that significantly de-
layed the building project (to include making it more difficult
for the church to raise the $12 million necessary to fund con-
struction), casting “doubt on the[] [city’s] good faith.” Id. at
899. The flagrancy of the city’s legal errors—coupled with our
related determination that the church had complied with the
relevant ordinances almost from the beginning—prompted
the observation that the church would suffer “unreasonable
delay” by having to restart a permit process that it had al-
ready satisfied. Id. at 900.
    Edgewood, by contrast, has suffered uncertainty and de-
lay with respect to a much smaller scale request—a lighting
permit—the denial of which does not pose the type of existen-
tial threat to religious mission implicated in New Berlin. Nor
does the record permit an inference of bad faith. The City has
reasonably maintained since the beginning of this saga that
Edgewood’s master plan did not allow lighting for nighttime
games. The City’s denial of Edgewood’s lighting permit ap-
plication aligned with that consistent position. A reasonable
juror could only conclude that subsequent actions—such as
the City’s amendment to the Campus-Institutional District or-
dinance and its denial of Edgewood’s conditional-use appli-
cation—were not motivated by “bad faith” or religious ani-
mus, but instead responded to the community’s concerns
about lights and noise. On this record, a jury could not find
that Edgewood’s frustrations with the lighting process im-
posed harm that amounted to a substantial burden on its
Catholic mission. See Civil Liberties for Urban Believers, 342
F.3d 752, 762 (7th Cir. 2003) (rejecting the plaintiff’s claim that
the “costs, procedural requirements, and inherent political
No. 23-1175                                                  17

aspects” of the zoning approval process imposed a substantial
burden within the meaning of RLUIPA).
    The district court correctly concluded that while Edge-
wood’s inability to use its athletic field at night presents an
inconvenience, and perhaps understandable source of frus-
tration for the high school, the City’s denial of the lighting
permit does not rise to the level of a substantial burden on
religious exercise under RLUIPA.
                               C
    That brings us to the constitutional claim Edgewood
brought under the Free Exercise Clause. Recall that the dis-
trict court did not address the claim on the merits, explaining
that RLUIPA is just as restrictive as the Free Exercise Clause—
if not more so. See Schlemm v. Wall, 784 F.3d 362, 363 (7th Cir.
2015) (bypassing First Amendment claims because
“[RLUIPA] provides greater protection”); Vision Church, 468
F.3d at 996 (analyzing the plaintiff’s Free Exercise and
RLUIPA substantial burden claims together “[g]iven the sim-
ilarities between RLUIPA § 2(a)(1) and First Amendment ju-
risprudence”). Because Edgewood has provided no compel-
ling reason to distinguish or revisit any aspect of this prece-
dent, we affirm the dismissal of the Free Exercise claim.
                              III
   Finally, Edgewood contends that it acquired a “vested
right” to install lights at its athletic field. Under Wisconsin
law, a “right to build” vests when the landowner submits a
permit application that “conforms to the zoning or building
code requirements in effect at the time of application.” McKee
Fam. I, LLC v. City of Fitchburg, 893 N.W.2d 12, 15 (Wis. 2017);
see also Wis. Stat. § 66.10015(2)(a). Wisconsin defines a
18                                                 No. 23-1175

“vested right” as a “right that so completely and definitely
belongs to a person that it cannot be impaired or taken away
without the person's consent.” Stoker v. Milwaukee Cty., 857
N.W.2d 102, 109 (Wis. 2014) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary
1520 (10th ed. 2014)). Wisconsin’s “Building Permit Rule” is
an exception to the general rule that “zoning does not create
vested rights.” McKee Fam. I, 893 N.W.2d at 20.
    The district court rightly rejected this claim on the merits
because Edgewood’s application for a lighting permit did not
conform with the municipal zoning requirements in effect at
the time, namely, Edgewood’s master plan. The City’s light-
ing ordinance stated that a permit applicant must conform
with “all other codes and regulations as applicable.” M.G.O.
§ 10.085(1). Edgewood’s master plan, an enacted city ordi-
nance, constituted an “applicable” regulation under the light-
ing ordinance at the time the school submitted its permit ap-
plication.
    The Campus-Institutional District ordinance, in turn, pro-
vided that “[n]o alteration” of a plan would be permitted un-
less approved by the City of Madison’s Plan Commission. Id.
§ 28.097(8). Edgewood’s plan nowhere identified field light-
ing as an “existing” or “proposed” condition. Especially be-
cause the lighting request sought to facilitate nighttime
games, it amounted to more than a “minor” alteration to the
master plan, thus requiring Plan Commission approval. See
id. Absent such approval, the improvement did not comply
with the master plan and so could not have complied with the
City’s lighting ordinance. The district court was right to enter
summary judgment for the City on Edgewood’s vested rights
claim.
     For these reasons, we AFFIRM.