An evangelical church, Life Covenant Church a/k/a LifeChurch.tv (“LifeChurch”), is suing Colonie, New York (“Town”), the Town’s Planning Board, certain of its members, and the Town’s attorneys over allegations that the Town’s failure to issue certain land use approvals is religious discrimination in violation of RLUIPA and the state and federal constitutions.  Presently, LifeChurch has a house of worship in Town, located at 560 Sand Creek Road, consisting of a 10,000 square foot facility, 180 seats for its members, four classrooms for Sunday school classes, and an associated parking lot with 82 parking spaces.  LifeChurch claims that its membership has been “rapidly growing, more than doubling in the past five years, and its attendance requirements exceed the capacity of its current facility.” According to LifeChurch, the “inadequacies of the current facility have prevented LifeChurch from performing tasks that it believes are mandated by God, including expanding LifeChurch’s membership and discipling to more members about the Christian faith.”

To better accommodate its religious needs, LifeChurch paid $1.78 million for a 25-acre site in Town to construct a new 36,601 square foot facility for worship services, 8 religious education and training rooms, and 457 parking spaces.  According to the complaint, LifeChurch applied for and obtained an area variance from the Town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, but has been delayed in obtaining other required approvals:

“LifeChurch’s zoning requests have been lost in a bureaucratic maze as the Town and Town Officials have routinely made conflicting requests and continued to unnecessarily delay in requesting and reviewing materials prior to the Planning Board’s consideration of LifeChurch’s zoning requests.  LifeChurch has reasonably responded to the Town’s requests.  However, it is clear based upon the Town’s and Town Officials’ actions and unreasonable delays that any additional attempts to accommodate the Town’s and Town Officials’ requests would be futile and LifeChurch’s zoning requests have been and will continue to be improperly delayed so as to effectively be denied.”

After refusing to hear its two prior applications for Open Development Area (“ODA”) approval to use an easement over a private road for ingress and egress, LifeChurch alleges the Town again informed it that it would have to submit another such application.  By letter dated December 8, 2014, the Town’s outside engineer stated that he would recommend ODA approval subject to certain conditions, including limits on the length of services, their frequency, and a minimum requirement that service times be 2 hours apart from start to start.  According to the complaint “[w]hen Town Officials were informed that the proposed conditions were not acceptable to LifeChurch, LifeChurch was told that it would not be placed upon the December 16, 2014 agenda without accepting the conditions set out by the Town’s outside engineer.”  LifeChurch continued to refuse to accept the conditions and the Town refused to place the ODA application on its meeting agenda.

LifeChurch sued, alleging violations of RLUIPA’s substantial burden, nondiscrimination, equal terms, and unreasonable limits provisions, and asserts a host of claims under the U.S. and New York constitutions.  The case is captioned Life Covenant Church, Inc. v. Town of Colonie, No. 1:14-CV-1530 (LEK/RFT) (N.D.N.Y. 2014).

Town Attorney Michael Maggiulli, a named defendant, stated: “We indicated to them the project was most likely going to be approved” and that the Town had put the Church “through their paces” during the review process.  He added: “They’re already in the community for one thing.  I don’t know how we would be discriminating against a religious group that’s already here.  It seems to me they’re reading the federal law like we simply had to just rubber stamp any project that a religious group proposed in the community and that’s just not true.”

Albany Business Review reports on the case. The complaint is available here. 

*Special thanks to Dean Patricia Salkin at the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center for the scoop.

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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.

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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.

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