Professor Alan Weinstein, of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, has published a new article The Effect of RLUIPAs Land Use Provisions on Local Governments with the Fordham Urban Law Journal. Here is the abstract:

In the absence of perfect information about how RLUIPA has affected local governments, this article argues that the courts have adopted a pragmatic approach to maneuvering in the difficult terrain that RLUIPA occupies: combining appropriate judicial deference to a legislature that enacts a neutral law of general applicability with the heightened judicial scrutiny that becomes appropriate when that same law is applied to a specific zoning approval, a circumstance that frequently allows for subjectivity, and thus the potential for discrimination or arbitrariness against religious uses, in the approval process. I conclude that: (1) until proven otherwise, the costs RLUIPA undoubtedly imposes on local governments is the price to be paid for insuring against the discriminatory or arbitrary application of land use regulations and (2) RLUIPA does not seek to establish an unconstitutional preference for religious uses, but rather a proper accommodation of religious exercise in the land use context.

Professor Weinstein has written extensively about RLUIPA, including its evolution since it was enacted in 2000 to how local governments may avoid such claims. Click Here to download his most recent article and check out our Resources page for other articles he has written.