7th Circuit upholds denial of preliminary injunction in Illinois church’s RLUIPA zoning challenge
The opinion in River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest, No. 08-2819 (7th Cir., Oct. 27, 2009) begins:
Before CUDAHY, MANION, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge. River of Life Kingdom Ministries (“the Church”) attempted to relocate its congregation from a crowded warehouse in Chicago Heights to its very own property—a dated fixer-upper in a blighted community in the Village of Hazel Crest. The problem was the Village had a zoning ordinance in place that designated the area a “Service Business District.” The ordinance permitted a number of commercial uses for the property, but not religious services. The Church was aware of this ordinance, but it bought the property anyway hoping it would receive a special use permit, a form of relief, which, unbeknownst to the Church, was no longer available under the current zoning ordinance.
So the Church sued the Village under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) to allow it to relocate to the business district. Before the case could be decided on the merits, the Church filed a motion for preliminary injunction to allow it to relocate to the property in the interim. The district court denied the motion and the Church appealed.
We conclude that the Church has only a slim chance of success on the merits and that any irreparable harm it may suffer does not significantly outweigh the potential harm to the
Village. As a result, we affirm the district court’s denial of the Church’s motion for preliminary injunction.