On February 5, 2015, the American Bar Association’s State & Local Government Law Section sponsored the program “Religious Land Use Litigation Since 2000,” held in Houston, Texas. I participated in the program, along with Daniel Dalton of Dalton & Tomich, Dean Patricia Salkin of Touro Law School, and Noel Sterett of Mauck & Baker. The panelists discussed the state of religious land use litigation under RLUIPA since its enactment in 2000 and the different approaches the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal have developed to analyze claims brought under the statute. The panelists also offered advice to both religious applicants and local governments bringing and defending against such claims, including what it takes to constitute a “substantial burden” under the statute, examples of “comparators” under the equal terms provision, the statute’s “safe harbor” provision, planning for religious use, educating local officials, and how the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Holt v. Hobbs may affect the religious land use litigation landscape. A copy of the presentation PowerPoint is available here. Houston is the largest city in the U.S. without any zoning ordinances. Time in the city made me consider, is lack of a zoning code another way local governments could avoid RLUIPA claims? Following Houston’s approach may be another – albeit extreme – example of a potential RLUIPA-avoidance technique.

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Photo of Evan Seeman Evan Seeman

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of…

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of an amicus curiae brief at the petition stage before the United States Supreme Court in a RLUIPA case entitled City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Evan serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the APA’s Planning & Law Division. He also serves as the Chair of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, and is the former Co-Chair of its Municipal Law Section. He has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list as a Rising Star in the area of Land Use Law for 2013 and 2014. He received his B.A. in political science and Russian studies (with honors) from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was selected as the President’s Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Evan received his Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he served on the Connecticut Law Review. While in law school, he interned with the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in the environmental department, and served as a judicial intern for the judges of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court. Following law school, Evan clerked for the Honorable F. Herbert Gruendel of the Connecticut Appellate Court.