The River of Life Kingdom Ministries is a small church that sought to relocate their operation to a building in a commercial district in the Village of Hazel Crest. The zoning ordinance was amended to exclude new noncommercial uses such as churches, community centers, art galleries and schools. River of Life sought a preliminary injunction and challenged the new ordinance under the Equal Terms provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Both the District Court and a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied the motion. The Seventh Circuit granted a re-hearing en banc to consider the appropriate test for determining a violation of the Equal Terms Provision.
The Court began by noting that both the 11th and 3rd Circuits have considered this issue, and each articulated different tests. The Eleventh Circuit, in Midrash Sephardi v. Town of Surfside, stated that if any assembly, as defined broadly in the dictionary, is permitted, then churches must be allowed permitted. Such broadly defined assemblies include private clubs, hospital operating theaters, bus terminals, air raid shelters, etc. The Seventh Circuit found this reading to be too broad, giving religious land uses “favored treatment.” The court further found that being so friendly to religious uses may also violate the “First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion by discriminating in favor of religious land uses.”
The Third Circuit, in Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism, Inc. c. City of Long Branch,held that “a regulation will violate the Equal Terms provision only if it treats religious assemblies or institutions less well than secular assemblies or institutions that are similarly situated as to the regulatory purpose.” Under the Third Circuit’s test, the goals of the ordinance must be identified, as well as the secular assemblies that are in the same position as the religious assembly, having similar goals. The Third Circuit’s test permits ordinances that are based on neutral purposes, those founded for reasons other than disadvantaging religious groups. The Seventh Circuit found fault with the Third Circuit’s test, as the use of regulatory purpose makes the meaning of “equal terms” dependant on the intentions of local government officials, which can be self serving and be used to disguise discriminatory law.
Therefore, the Seventh Circuit proposed to solve the deficiencies of the Third Circuit’s test by shifting the focus from the regulatory purpose to the regulatory criteria. The Court explained that defining a purpose is subjective and flexible whereas regulatory criteria would be objective, allowing the courts to apply criteria to make a determination. The court then discussed the exclusivity in use districts, as opposed to cumulative zoning. The early model of cumulative zoning allows higher uses, such as residential uses, to be located in lower uses, such as commercial uses. This model of zoning, however, gave way to exclusivity, under which, for example, in commercial districts, commercial uses are permitted and non-commercial uses are prohibited. In a commercial district, for instance, residential uses could be prohibited as the residential uses would necessitate changes in the commercial district, such as slowing down traffic, which would damage the commercial efficiency the district was created.
In this case, the appellee’s commercial use district excluded churches, community centers, meeting halls and libraries, as these uses do not “generate significant taxable revenue or offer shopping opportunities.” The criterion of the exclusive commercial use district treated all like assemblies the same, whether they be religious or secular, and was done to further the concerns that prompted the construction of the district (revitalization of an area that was prime for commercial use).
Accordingly, in the Seventh district, the courts will look to the treatment received among uses, secular and religious, in light of the acceptable zoning criterion, such as the exclusive use district. If the uses are similar and treated the same, addressing the concerns of the accepted criterion, then the zoning ordinance will be found to be lawful under the equal-terms provision.
River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest, 2010 WL 2630602 (7th Cir., 7/2/ 2010).
This case can be accessed here.
