Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. City of West Linn

The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was denied a conditional use permit from the City of West Linn, Oregon. The group wished to build a church meetinghouse in a residential area of the city and submitted a proposed site plan. After the church agreed to various conditions, including better screening the parking lot from a nearby street, city planning staff recommended that the planning commission allow the permit.

The permit was denied, however, on September 5, 2002. The commission claimed that the proposed building size was not appropriate in a residential area and that the proposed use was not compatible with nearby residential uses. It also argued that the parking lot could not be properly screened from the surrounding residential area and that there was insufficient road service.

After the denial, the church appealed to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA). LUBA found that the city’s decision did, as the church had argued, violate the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). It maintained that the city’s criteria for a condition use permit were “extremely subjective” and left the city “significant discretion to approve or deny the application.” As summarized in the Court of Appeals of Oregon decision:

LUBA concluded that the denial of the church's application constituted a substantial burden for several reasons: (1) it was based on “highly discretionary standards”; (2) there were no zones in the city in which the church's proposed use would be permitted outright; (3) the record did not demonstrate that larger sites were available in the city or that a new application involving a larger site would be approved; and (4) where the “apparent intent of RLUIPA is to require that local governments treat proposed land uses more favorably, if necessary, than those proposed by non-religious entities,” it was immaterial that the city would have denied a similar application proposed by a nonreligious entity.

LUBA sent the issue back to the city to decide whether the application could be approved under suitable conditions.

The city sought judicial review of LUBA’s determination, arguing both that LUBA wrongly applied RLUIPA and that RLUIPA was unconstitutional. On March 24, 2004, the Court of Appeals of Oregon handed down its decision. It concluded that the city’s rejection of a conditional use permit did not violate RLUIPA. It did not reach the question of whether the law was constitutional. 

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief (PDF format, 294K) on September 21, 2004, with the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon. The Becket Fund argued for the reversal of the lower court’s ruling that the denial of the church’s conditional use permit was not a substantial burden on religious exercise. Distinguishing two federal cases relied upon by the Oregon Court of Appeals to make its determination, The Becket Fund argued that a denial of a discretionary permit application—as opposed to the denial of a request to amend the application process—may constitute a substantial burden on religious exercise in violation of RLUIPA and First Amendment jurisprudence.

“The court below relied on two federal circuit court decisions . . . to reach the conclusion that Petitioner’s religious exercise . . . was not substantially burdened under RLUIPA,” The Becket Fund explained. “However, both cases involved a challenge to a zoning ordinance’s requirement to pursue a complete application for a discretionary permit, and not a challenge to the denial of a permit itself. They are therefore inapplicable to actions such as the case at bar.”

The Becket Fund further contended that the religious exercise of an institution—and congregation, for that matter—is substantially burdened when the right and opportunity to gather for worship, prayer, and community service are denied.

“It would be no answer to tell a child wishing to observe a religious holiday that there is no substantial burden on her religious exercise because she could simply attend a different school, or to tell a government employee requesting permission to wear a turban that he can find another job. Nor should municipalities be able to tell religious land use permit applicants that they can simply try elsewhere, and only when it is ‘effectively impracticable’ to locate anywhere in the jurisdiction can they challenge its actions.”