RLUIPA.org
Legion of Christ v. Town of Mount Pleasant
The Legion of Christ purchased a vacant 168 acre parcel of land in Mount Pleasant, New York from IBM in December 1996. The Legion is a Catholic religious organization incorporated under Section 402 of New York's Not-For-Profit Corporation Law, and is exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Shortly after acquiring the property, the Legion hired a land use planning firm to prepare a plan of use for the property, which incorporated both religious and recreational uses. The plan included an outdoor chapel, a path containing Stations of the Cross and a grotto dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Buffer areas were included in order to "insure the requisite solitude for prayer, reflection and meditation."
The Legion of Christ then filed an application for exemption of the property with the assessor of the Town of Mount Pleasant, prior to the taxable status date of June 1, 1997. The application specified the planned uses of the property "in good faith contemplated," since project construction had not yet begun. Submitted with the application was the organization's certificate of incorporation, showing that it was organized exclusively for religious, educational and charitable purposes.
The assessor denied the application on grounds that the Legion's planned use was not as a "church or other place of worship," which is a permitted use in the applicable OB-1 zoning district not requiring a special permit. Rather, the Legion was considered a "religious institution," which can locate in the zone but must obtain a special permit. Neither of the terms is defined in the zoning ordinance.
The Legion of Christ filed suit against the Town of Mount Pleasant in the Supreme Court, Westchester County, arguing that it is not required by law to obtain land use permits in order to receive a mandatory exemption from real property taxation. In a decision issued on June 4, 2001, the court acknowledged that "the exempt nature of petitioner is not in issue, and it is not in dispute that the purposes for which petitioner uses or plans to use the subject property are exempt under the statute." Nevertheless, the court held that because the property would be used as a "religious institution" rather than a "place of worship," the proposed use of the property was "unlawful in the absence of the required special permit," and that therefore the property was taxable. The Supreme Court issued an Order and Judgment on September 25, 2001.
The Legion appealed, and the New York Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the Supreme Court ruling in a decision issued on March 10, 2003. "The principal use of the property will be for religious institution purposes, not for worship. Consequently, a special permit is required. Since the petitioner does not have such a permit, its proposed use of the property is illegal and it is not entitled to a tax exemption," the Appellate Division stated.
In short, the courts held that property owned by such a religious institution is not exempt from taxes unless and until municipal permits have been issued.
The Legion moved for leave to appeal to New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, and the motion was granted on June 10, 2003.
On December 18, 2003, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus curiae brief (PDF format, 82K) with the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, suggesting to the court that "this case provides a good example of a zoning ordinance that vests essentially unbridled discretion in local government officials to let in the religious groups they like and keep out the ones they don't."
The Becket Fund brief notes that "It is axiomatic that courts should interpret statutory law in a manner that avoids unnecessary constitutional risks," and that "this rule applies with special frequency and force in the area of religious liberty." If a non-profit, religious use of land must first obtain all municipal land-use permits before it qualifies as exempt from taxation, "the administration of that exemption would then entail a high risk of constitutional violation" and "would be especially ill-advised."
Congressional hearings leading up to the passage of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ("RLUIPA") confirmed that "land-use permitting processes are notoriously discretionary and susceptible to capture for the purpose of enforcing private biases, especially as against locally disfavored religious groups."
The brief notes that the New York Appellate Division "stated with particular clarity" the risks in its 1979 decision in Am. Friends of the Soc'y of St. Pius v. Schwab:
"Human experience teaches us that public officials, when faced with pressure to bar church uses by those residing in a residential neighborhood, tend to avoid any appearance of an antireligious stance and temper their decision by carefully coucing their grounds for refusal to permit such use in terms of traffic dangers, fire hazards and noise and disturbance, rather than on such crasser grounds as lessening of property values or loss of open space or entry of strangers into the neighborhood or undue crowding of the area."
"To introduce this known wellspring of religious discrimination into the administration of the statutory tax exemption at issue — which is otherwise neutral and generally applicable — would be to manufacture needless constitutional risks under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment," the brief continued. "Accordingly, this Court should avoid any interpretation of [the state statute] that would predicate its tax exemption on local land-use permitting processes."
In an opinion issued on February 19, 2004 (PDF format, 42K), the New York Court of Appeals reversed the order of the Appellate Division, and sent the case back "to that court for further proceedings in accordance with this Opinion." The Court held that "tax exemption statutes . . . should not be so narrowly interpreted as to defeat their settled purpose to encourage, foster and protect religious institutions as a public benefit." It further held that a case cited by the Town in support of its position, Matter of Oxford Group-Moral Rearmament, MRA, Inc. v. Allen, "provides no support for the proposition that nonprofit organizations must acquire or apply for special permits to qualify for tax exemption on the basis of good faith. The additional requirement imposed by the Appellate Division that an applicant must possess a special use permit is also not found in section 420-a. We, therefore, reject the proposition that a special use permit is required as a condition precedent to a real property tax exemption pursuant to Real Property Tax Law § 420-a (3)(a)."
Finally, the court ruled that "The Appellate Division erred in determining that the proposed use was illegal absent the acquisition of a special use permit. The court therefore did not undertake a review of the issue of 'good faith contemplation' and instead concluded the principal use of the property was to be for 'religious institution[al] purposes, not for worship'. The proper inquiry should have been whether the development of the property for tax exempt purposes was 'in good faith contemplated.' As the Appellate Division never reached that issue, we remit to it for that purpose."
In a dissent, Judge Robert Smith agreed that the Appellate Division had "committed an error of law in holding that the absence of a special permit barred petitioner's application for a real property tax exemption. On my view of the record, however, that error was the sole basis on which the application was or could have been denied. I therefore see no need to remit for further proceedings, and would simply grant petitioner's motion for summary judgment annulling the denial of the tax exemption." All of the other judges of the court concurred with the opinion written by Judge Ciparick.
(Legion of Christ, Inc. v. Town of Mount Pleasant, Appellate Division - Second Department Docket No. 2001-10123; Westchester County Clerk's Index No. 15524/97)
Articles & News Items
- "Legion Wins Zoning Case Before NY's Highest Court," June 6, 2006