Fed. Dist. Court of NY Dismisses Establishment Clause Claims Over Enactment of Zoning Law Related to Houses of Worship for Lack of Standing

This post was authored by Matthew Loescher, Esq.

Plaintiffs Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods, Hilda Kogut, Robert Asselbergs, and Carole Goodman claimed Defendant the Village of Chestnut Ridge, New York violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in its enactment of a new zoning law relating to houses of worship, Local Law #1 of 2019, by favoring only one religious group, the Orthodox Jewish Coalition. Defendant filed motion to dismiss, which the court reviewed in this case.

Defendant first contended that Plaintiffs lacked standing because no injury in fact had been alleged. Specifically, Plaintiffs merely claimed that Defendant’s actions “serve the purposes of OJC and have the effect of favoring the OJC” without identifying a single instance of how they were disfavored under this new law. Additionally, while Plaintiffs claimed that they had taxpayer standing because the Village incurred expenses in hiring a planning firm to review the proposed zoning law, plaintiffs failed to allege a measurable amount of the alleged appropriations. Accordingly, the court held that Individual Plaintiffs did not have taxpayer standing to bring forth this action. Plaintiffs claim they had direct exposure standing failed for this reason as well.

The court next found that CUPON lacked organizational standing, as it did not allege it suffered any injuries to its organization’s activities or that it was forced to divert resources from current activities because of the enactment of the New Zoning Law. As individual Plaintiffs failed to establish individual standing to bring forth this action, the court held CUPON did not have associational standing. Since all Plaintiffs lacked standing, the court found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction.

Citizens United to Protect our Neighborhoods v Village of Chestnut Ridge, 2022 WL 4647821 (SDNY 9/30/2022)