The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida has denied the City of Jacksonville’s motion to dismiss Church of Our Savior’s (formerly known as Resurrection Anglican Church) RLUIPA suit, and has scheduled the case for trial.  The Church was founded in 2006 and has about 110 members and weekly parishioners.  Its religious mission is “to revel in and share the grace that God has shown them,” and seeks to encourage members in the community to attend its religious services.  Aside from religious services, the Church provides bible study classes, serves the homeless, and assists nearby schools.

Currently, the Church rents space from the City of Jacksonville Beach Historical Society on a six-month rolling basis.  Under its lease the Church can only hold services for four hours per week, and it wants to have more time for worship.  It also is not permitted to make repairs or alter the chapel of the space it leases to accommodate its religious needs.  The Church leases additional space from a separate owner for its administrative offices, and is relegated to holding its men’s bible study sessions in the back of “Colonel Mustard’s” – a popular hamburger restaurant.  These limitations, the Church alleges, prevent it from attracting new members to its congregation, in contravention of its religious beliefs.

To alleviate these burdens, the Church began searching for a single location from which it could practice its religion.  In 2012, the Church found property in the City’s “Residential, single family (RS-1)” zoning district, and acquired an option to purchase the property (Property).  In this zone, “public and private parks, playgrounds, and recreational facilities” are allowed as-of-right, but churches must obtain a conditional use permit (CUP) to locate there.  The Church alleges that the Property “is the only available property to ideally fit its needs . . . .”

In March 2013, the Church submitted a CUP application to construct a one-story, 7,440 square foot building containing a sanctuary and additional space that could hold more than 200 people, and with a children’s play area for the congregation.  The staff of the City’s Planning and Development Department prepared a report recommending approval of the application, because the proposal “represents a reasonable low intensity use of the undeveloped parcels surrounding the City’s lift station, and would serve as transition between the soon to be developed commercial parking facilities to the east, and the Hopson Road neighborhood to the west and south.”  Five residents from the neighborhood opposed the application, and the Planning Commission denied the application.

The Church submitted another CUP application in August 2013, this time characterizing the proposed children’s play area as a public park.  The Planning and Development Department staff again recommended approval for the same reasons as before.  Neighborhood residents spoke in opposition and the Planning Commission denied the CUP on the grounds that “(1) the proposal ‘is not consistent with the character of the immediate vicinity;’ (2) the proposal is ‘inconsistent’ with the City’s Comprehensive Plan, which requires future institutional uses, like churches, to be located outside of low-density residential areas; and (3) changing the designation of the children’s play area to a public park means the proposed building would exceed the maximum of 35% lot coverage for property zones RS-1.”

The Church brought a five-count RLUIPA suit against the City.  It alleges that the City’s CUP denial substantially burdens its religious exercise because “The Church wishes to build a facility on what it claims is the only available property to ideally fit its needs, and the City’s denial of its application for a CUP means the Church cannot do so.”  Instead, the Church “is left with its rolling, six-month lease on the Beaches Museum Chapel, a less than ideal location, with no guarantee the lease will continue to be renewed.”  The Church also claims that the City’s zoning ordinance violated RLUIPA’s equal-terms provision on its face by treating religious uses worse than secular assembly uses.  In support of this argument, the Church points to “public and private parks, playgrounds, and recreational facilities” uses that are allowed as-of-right in the subject zoning district, while religious institutions must obtain a CUP through discretionary review to locate there.  It also alleges that City violated RLUIPA’s equal-terms and nondiscrimination provisions as-applied by treating it worse than other secular and religious uses that obtained zoning approval to locate in the zone.  Finally, the Church argues that the City has violated RLUIPA’s unreasonable limitations provision by adopting policies that make it difficult for religious institutions to locate anywhere in the City.

On July 18, 2014, the District Court denied the City’s motion to dismiss the Church’s claims, concluding that the claims were properly pled to proceed to trial.  The District Court has agreed to expedite the case for trial – scheduled to occur on September 2, 2014.

Daniel P. Dalton, an experienced RLUIPA litigator who represents the Church, offered the following comment:

“The law ensures that a city’s zoning restrictions don’t single out ministries for discrimination and penalize them because of their religious viewpoint.  The city should do the right thing and grant Church of Our Savior a permit to build its church so it can fulfill its mission and continue to serve its community.”

Attorney Dalton is described by Bram Alden in his article “Reconsidering RLUIPA: Do Religious Land Use Protections Really Benefit Religious Land Users?” as “a leading RLUIPA proponent who has represented religious plaintiffs in a number of prominent RLUIPA cases,” including the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in its lawsuit against the City of San Diego (read more here).

The District Court’s decision denying the City’s motion to dismiss in Church of Our Savior v. City of Jacksonville, No. 3:13-cv-1346 (M.D. FL 2014), is found here.

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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.

Photo of Dwight Merriam Dwight Merriam

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of…

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former Director of the American Planning Association (APA), a former chair of APA’s Planning and Law Division, Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Chair of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the Center for American and International Law, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute National Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, a Counselor of Real Estate, a member of the Anglo-American Real Property Institute, and a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

He teaches land use law at the University of Connecticut School of Law and at Vermont Law School and has published over 200 articles and eight books, including Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, The Takings Issue, The Complete Guide to Zoning, and Eminent Domain Use and Abuse: Kelo in Context. He is the senior co-author of the leading casebook on land use law, Planning and Control of Land Development (Eighth Edition). Dwight has written and spoken widely on how to avoid RLUIPA claims and how to successfully defend against them in court. He is currently writing a book on the subject, RLUIPA DEFENSE, for the American Bar Association.

Dwight has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list in the area of Land Use Law since 2006, is one of the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers in Connecticut, and is one of the Top 100 New England Super Lawyers (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.). He received his B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, his Masters of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, where he was the graduation speaker in 2011, and his J.D. from Yale. He is a featured speaker at many land use seminars, and presents monthly audio land use seminars for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Dwight has been cited in the national press from The New York Times to People magazine and has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC and public television.

Dwight also had a career in the Navy, serving for three tours in Vietnam aboard ship, then returning to be the Senior Advisor of the Naval ROTC Unit at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he taught Defense Administration and Military Management as an Assistant Professor in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Defense Administration and Military Management. He left active duty after seven years to attend law school, but continued on for 24 more years as a reserve Surface Warfare Officer with two major commands, including that of the reserve commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He retired as a Captain in 2009 after 31 years of service.