RLUIPA.org
New Life Christian Fellowship
New Life Christian Fellowship is a four-year old congregation located in De Pere, Wisconsin, on the outskirts of Green Bay. It has been renting space for its services in a local school which is no longer large enough to accommodate its growing membership. In November 2002, the church applied for a conditional use permit so that it could move into a vacant commercial property at 113 N. Wisconsin Avenue, formerly used by a furniture store.
The De Pere Plan Commission recommended approval of the application, but on February 19, 2003, the De Pere Common Council voted 5-2 to reject the application. The De Pere Business Alliance had opposed the church move into the building because it would reduce the amount of retail space in the business district.
On March 3, 2003 The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sent a letter to the Mayor and Common Council members warning that "if the City fails to reconsider that denial, the City would be violating the Church's rights under federal law and likely subject to liability, including the cost of the Church's attorney fees."
Denying the permit would substantially burden the church's religious exercise, something it could do only if it was serving a "compelling government interest," the letter pointed out. "The City has not articulated an interest sufficient to impose such a burden," because courts have determined that compelling interests are those "of the highest order . . . interests that address a clear and present, grave and immediate danger to public health, peace, and welfare. The only governmental interest identified by the City—essentially the need to preserve the area for revenue generating retail business—simply does not meet that high hurdle," the letter states.
The City's zoning ordinance also treats religious uses on "less than equal terms" as other non-religious forms of assembly, because it permits such uses as theaters, gymnasiums, day care centers and certain types of schools even as it refuses to allow assembly for religious purposes.
"Finally," the letter concludes, "it is especially unfortunate that the City appears to have adopted and enforced its zoning requirements preventing the Church's location in the business district for the very purpose of discriminating religious institutions." It notes that a letter from Alderperson Mike Fleck to the Mayor, Council and Administrator, made part of the public record at the February 19 meeting, states, "The last time our zoning code was revised 'meeting places' were deleted as standard uses in the business district and were made to get a conditional use permit. I think that says we do not want to have churches in our downtown business district." (emphasis added) "Such explicit targeting of churches for unfavorable treatment is precisely the kind of hostility toward religious uses that RLUIPA and the First Amendment prohibit."
On March 5, the Council voted to reconsider its initial denial at its meeting on March 18, 2003.