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Justices decline to hear religious burden claim against Montgomery County

Justices decline to hear religious burden claim against Montgomery County

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Burtonsville landowners who claim Montgomery County illegally enforced a zoning requirement that prevented a Christian group from building a church on their land.

Without comment, the justices let stand a lower court ruling that the county did not violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act by refusing to alter its master plan and extend sewer service to the planned building.

The federal law, known by its acronym RLUIPA, prohibits government from imposing substantial burdens on religious exercise through land use restrictions.

Montgomery County has denied the alleged violation.

The county’s refusal to extend sewer service — and court decisions upholding the refusal — have blocked Burtonsville Associates and Burtonsville Crossing LLC’s planned sale of their land to Canaan Christian Church, a sales plan which has been in place since 2013.

The landowners lobbied the county on behalf of themselves and the church and ultimately pressed their legal challenge to the Supreme Court – to no avail.

The owners’ attorney, Roman P. Storzer, did not immediately return a message Monday seeking comment on their plans.

The owners’ denied appeal was docketed at the Supreme Court as Burtonsville Associates et al. v. Montgomery County, Md., et al., No. 22-260.

The justices’ denial leaves in place the 4th Circuit’s decisions that Canaan Christian Church had no “reasonable expectation” the county would change its master plan upon request and that the county complied with RLUIPA by telling the church it could build a smaller facility.

The county also did not treat the church on “less than equal terms” with the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, a secular facility that was afforded a sewer service extension, the 4th Circuit said last March in upholding U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang’s grant of summary judgment for the county.

In the owners’ unsuccessful petition for Supreme Court review, Storzer stated that a religious group need not show it had a reasonable expectation of zoning approval before it can claim a denial substantially burdened its religious exercise under the law.

To require such a showing would turn “RLUIPA into a statute limiting federal courts to sit as boards of zoning appeals, determining simply whether under local zoning law a permit should have been expected to be granted,” wrote Storzer, of Storzer & Associates PC in Washington. “RLUIPA is nothing of the sort, but is a federal civil rights statute limiting … the situations in which local governments may take zoning actions that impose substantial burdens on religious exercise.”

The 4th Circuit was also wrong to hold that the county satisfied RLUIPA by telling the church it could build an 800-seat facility rather than one that accommodates 2,000 congregants, as it had requested, added Storzer, who specializes in RLUIPA claims.

“Of course a church is not entitled to a finding of substantial burden simply because it says it needs a facility of a certain size,” Storzer wrote. “But the church is entitled to have a court examine whether denying a building of a certain size that it alleges it requires is in fact a substantial burden.”

In response, the county said RLUIPA does not require the government to make special accommodations for religious facilities in land use decisions, as that would violate the constitutional prohibition on governmental establishment of religion.

The county’s decision to stick with its master plan on sewer service did not substantially burden the church’s religious exercise because a septic system would still enable the church to have an 800-seat facility, added the county’s lead attorney, Howard R. Feldman, of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston LLP in Baltimore.

“A rule allowing a substantial burden claim based solely on whether a religious institution obtains what it wants, no matter how unrealistic or unsuitable the proposal, would allow by judicial fiat what Congress expressly warned against,” Feldman wrote in the county’s successful request that the justices not hear the appeal. “Contrary to RLUIPA’s legislative history and the Establishment Clause, such a standard would immunize religious institutions from local land use regulations.”

The 4th Circuit’s published decision in the case is docketed as Burtonsville Associates et al. v. Montgomery County, Md., et al., No. 20-2185.

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