7th Circuit rules on the “rights of religious organizations to avoid having to comply with local land-use regulations”

This post may be updated to provide reports and analysis of the ruling.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has issued a ruling in World Outreach Conference Center v. U.S., No. 08-4167 (7th Cir. Dec. 30, 2009).

Excerpts:
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Before CUDAHY, POSNER, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
POSNER, Circuit Judge . . .

We have consolidated for decision two cases presenting the recurring issue of the rights of religious organizations to avoid having to comply with local land-use regulations. Analysis requires threading our way through a maze of statutory and constitutional provisions and we begin there, which is to say with the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc et seq., Illinois’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 775 ILCS 35/1 et seq., and the Constitution’s free exercise, establishment, and due process clauses . . .

World Outreach brought the present suit in April 2006, the dismissal of the state court suit having deprived it of that procedural vehicle for challenging the City’s insistence on the necessity for a Special Use Permit. In August of the following year, with the suit pending, the City without explanation issued an SRO license to World Outreach even though the organization had not sought or obtained a Special Use Permit. As a result of the City’s actions beginning with the initial denial of the SRO license, World Outreach was impeded in its religious mission of providing living facilities to homeless and other needy people and incurred substantial legal expenses as well . . .

So we move to our second case, which involves a challenge under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act to the application of Peoria’s landmark law to the building shown in the photograph at the end of this opinion. The Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church is located on property at the edge of downtown Peoria. In 1989 it bought an adjacent parcel that contained the building in the photo. Trinity applied to the city in 2000 for a permit to demolish the building. A neighborhood group filed an application to have the building designated a landmark under the City’s preservation ordinance Peoria Municipal Code §§ 16-61, 16-86. The City granted the landmark application. Six years later Trinity again sought the City’s permission to demolish the building so that it could build on its site a “Family Life Center.” The City refused, and the refusal, Trinity argues, has imposed a substantial burden on its religious activities in violation of section 2000cc(a)(1) because the building is not suitable for the family-life center that Trinity envisages . . .