RLUIPA.org
Cypress land seizure "an effort to subvert" federal court's jurisdiction
The attempt by the City of Cypress, California to seize the property of Cottonwood Christian Center is "but the latest tactic in their ongoing, years-long strategy to supplant a planned church with a preferred retail establishment," according to a Cottonwood reply brief (PDF format, 242K) filed with U.S. District Court for the Central District of California late Monday. A hearing on the church's request for a preliminary injunction to block the city's land grab will take place next Monday, August 5, at 8:30 a.m. in courtroom 9D in the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.
"The city insists "that their complaint in eminent domain, filed in May 2002, should take precedence" over Cottonwood's lawsuit, which was filed in January 2002. "In perhaps their most desperate argument," the reply brief notes, the city makes "the facially implausible argument that despite the immediate prospect of permanently losing its real estate, Cottonwood's claim is not yet ripe." The city is attempting "a once-and-for-all seizure of [the church's] entire interest in the property, done in violation of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution."
The city insists that because the property at issue is currently vacant, the church's Free Exercise of Religion is not burdened. "The city conveniently forgets, however, just why it is that Cottonwood's land is still vacant more than two years after Cottonwood first applied for permission to build its church. It is still vacant only because of the City's ongoing, unconstitutional denial of a conditional use permit," the brief points out. "After having unlawfully kept Cottonwood from building its church, Defendants cannot now claim some benefit because the property is only ‘vacant land.'"
The brief also asserts that courts must apply the highest standard—"strict scrutiny"—to cases of this sort, both because the city is making "individualized assessments" and because several distinct constitutional rights are implicated at the same time. Strict scrutiny analysis requires that the city have a truly "compelling government interest" and advance that interest by the "least restrictive means" available, neither of which can be said about Cypress' actions.
Finally, the brief argues that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act [RLUIPA] clearly applies in this case. "If RLUIPA were construed not to cover eminent domain, any city brazen enough to condemn church property could evade RLUIPA in precisely the way" that Cypress is attempting here.