The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a church’s claim that denial of a setback variance substantially burdened its religious exercise under the Religious Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).  In 2012, a religious congregation, Reconciling People Together in Faith Ministries, LLC (the “Congregation”), was formed in the City of Newport News, Virginia.  The Congregation initially worshipped at a local business owned by its pastor, but sought to find an alternate location for religious use.  The Congregation found a 0.32 acre property, owned by Andon, LLC, at 6212 Jefferson Avenue in the City that it believed would meet its religious needs.  The Property is in the City’s commercial zoning district permitting a “community facility” subject to four conditions, one of which the Property does not meet: “no building or structure, nor accessory building or structure is located within 100 feet of any side or rear property line which is zoned single-family residential.”

Although the Congregation was aware that the Property did not meet one of the zoning requirements for “community use,” it entered into a lease agreement with Andon that was contingent upon Andon obtaining City approval to allow a church facility on the Property.  To this end, Andon filed an application to vary the setback requirement with the City’s Board of Zoning Appeals (the “BZA”).  However, the City Codes Compliance Department recommended denial of the application “because the property could be used for other purposes without a variance, and because denial of a variance would not cause Andon to suffer a hardship unique among other commercial property owners in the vicinity.”  The BZA adopted the Compliance Departments recommendation and denied the application.

Andon and the Congregation both sued alleging a violation of RLUIPA’s substantial burden provision, because the variance denial caused “delay in obtaining a viable worship location” and “uncertainty as to whether … the [C]ongregation will be able to go forward with the lease of the [P]roperty.”  According to the Congregation, it “could not find a[n alternative property] that was the appropriate size, location, and price” to be used by the Congregation as a place of worship, since “[m]any of the [alternative] buildings were too large and too expensive for [the] young congregation.”

The Fourth Circuit concluded that the Congregation could not establish a substantial burden claim because it never had a reasonable expectation that it could use the Property as a church.  Important to the Court’s analysis, the Congregation was aware of the setback requirement before it agreed to lease the Property.  Also, prior to Andon’s filing of the variance application, the City’s Zoning Administrator informed it that the application would be denied for failure to meet the setback requirement.  “Because the plaintiffs knowingly entered into a contingent lease agreement for a non-conforming property, the alleged burdens they sustained were not imposed by the BZA’s action denying the variance, but were self-imposed hardships.”

The Court also decided that the Congregation’s alleged inability to find another suitable property did not affect the result.  According to the Court, the absence of alternate property capable of accommodating religious needs will not by itself support a substantial burden claim under RLUIPA.  Further, the Court observed that if it “agreed with the plaintiffs that the BZA’s denial of a variance imposed a substantial burden on their religious exercise, we effectively would be granting an automatic exemption to religious organizations from generally applicable land use regulations.  Such a holding would usurp the role of local governments in zoning matters when a religious group is seeking a variance, and impermissibly would favor religious uses over secular uses.”

The Court’s decision in Andon, LLC v. City of Newport News, Virginia (4th Cir. 2016) is available here.  Our prior post about the lower court’s ruling in this case is available 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.

Photo of John Peloso John Peloso

John Peloso, a partner in the firm’s Real Estate Litigation Group, is a trial lawyer who represents companies, municipalities, and individuals in a wide range of matters. At the administrative, trial, and appellate levels, John counsels clients and litigates real property disputes, including…

John Peloso, a partner in the firm’s Real Estate Litigation Group, is a trial lawyer who represents companies, municipalities, and individuals in a wide range of matters. At the administrative, trial, and appellate levels, John counsels clients and litigates real property disputes, including real estate, land use, environmental, and tax matters, including RLUIPA and eminent domain matters.

In the area of real estate litigation, John represents institutional, municipal, and individual clients in disputes involving title, zoning, wetlands, land use, RLUIPA, eminent domain, and other real property rights. He also represents clients in all aspects of commercial lease and other real estate transactional disputes. In the area of real property tax litigation, he represents institutional and individual clients in proceedings at the regulatory, administrative, and trial levels. In this regard, he has dealt with specialized issues involving among other things, the valuation of high-tech software, wireless communications equipment, contingency fee tax audits, special use properties, and the impact of environmental conditions on the valuation of real property.

Prior to joining Robinson+Cole, John was a member of the litigation department at White & Case LLP in New York City, where he concentrated his practice in complex commercial, property and securities litigation.