The O'Melveny & Myers legal team and Anchor Stone Christian Church members stand outside a federal courtroom in Santa Ana, California. Anchor Stone sued Santa Ana in February, alleging the city thwarted its plan to find a permanent home. (Courtesy of O'Melveny & Myers)
Local zoning and planning boards, usually unelected decision-making bodies, often operate with sweeping discretion that can provide cover for discrimination against religious communities. But backed by pro bono attorneys, religious groups are leaning on a 2000 federal law in their bid for court intervention.
In one recent case, a group of Taiwanese immigrants say a California city's planning board first said their plans to build a church at a commercial property looked "great," only to reverse course after the community bought the property. In another, members of a Muslim congregation in New York allege their Long Island town amended its parking laws to ensure a local mosque had to seek a zoning variance for renovation plans, which a planning board arbitrarily denied.
In these and other clashes that wound their way to federal court in recent months, religious communities found themselves backed into a corner by land use authorities whose members are typically appointed by local elected officials and legislators.
"When you start to get down to these smaller municipalities and people, very often unelected officials who have a tremendous amount of power over religious land use, there is a huge risk for discrimination against religious minorities," said Yehudah Buchweitz of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, who is representing a Jewish group in a similar suit.
Daniel Dalton, co-founder of Dalton & Tomich PLC, noted that he's witnessed an escalation in hostility and discrimination against religious communities arising within these municipal bodies over his decades of experience litigating religious land use cases. Dalton is currently representing a Pennsylvania church in its own religious land use suit.
"Municipalities have become increasingly more difficult and challenging for [religious communities]," Dalton said. "You walk into this planning commission meeting and immediately it's hostile, 'What are you trying to pull over us?' kind of thing."
But a 2000 federal law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA, prohibits land use regulations that substantially burden religious exercise. And RLUIPA litigation provides a path for religious communities to challenge these decisions on equal footing with these powerful bodies, attorneys noted.
"These land use decisions are often made by powerful municipal bodies with significant discretion," Muhammad Faridi of Linklaters LLP told Law360. Faridi is representing Muslim congregants in the Long Island case.
"What RLUIPA provides us and other religious communities, which are often the smaller immigrant minority groups, is a legal challenge to the arbitrary and discriminatory decisions made by [these] bodies," Faridi said.
At least four such cases, including three litigated pro bono by BigLaw attorneys, have hit the dockets in California, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts since September 2024. Attorneys told Law360 the cases — which have recently found an ally in the U.S. Department of Justice — speak to how land use bodies can provide cover for religious discrimination.
A representative for the New York town and counsel for the Pennsylvania borough declined to comment. Representatives for the California and Massachusetts cities did not return requests for comment.
Renderings show the new mosque that Muslim congregants on Long Island Inc. had planned to construct before running into opposition from a local zoning board. (Courtesy of Linklaters)
Land Use Regulations Can Provide Cover for Religious Discrimination
When a mosque in Oyster Bay, New York, sought approval from the town to build a new three-story building at the site of its two existing buildings, the town made changes to its land use application fee structure and parking laws in a targeted effort to thwart the application, per a suit filed in January by Muslims on Long Island Inc.
Muslims on Long Island Inc., or MOLI, own and operate the Masjid Al-Baqi mosque in Oyster Bay.
The mosque started the "bizarre and nightmarishly illogical" approval process in 2018, seeking approval from the town to construct new facilities that better suited the community's needs, according to the complaint.
Early in the process, the township changed its fee structure and saddled the mosque with $45,000 in fees to ensure its application was reviewed. A few years further down the line, Oyster Bay leaders tweaked a key parking ordinance applied solely to houses of worship, increasing the number of parking spots the mosque was required to have from 86 to 155, per the January complaint.
Due to the updated parking laws, the mosque was forced to seek a parking variance from the town's planning advisory board. Linklaters attorneys for MOLI noted that the parking law change narrowly targeted religious institutions, a key distinction that underpins the mosque's RLUIPA claims.
"The ordinance only applies to houses of worship," Linklaters partner Diana Conner said. "[For] comparable nonreligious uses like theaters, the rules stayed the same, they didn't increase."
Ultimately the board denied MOLI's request after it was inundated with messages from residents who said the building would be an "eyesore" and out of character with the neighborhood, asserting that attendees were not a part of the local community and sharing fears that the "monstrous structure" would change the culture and demographics of the town, per the suit.
Land use officials' final decision cited concerns about traffic, parking and neighborhood character, coded language often wielded to disguise discriminatory intent, Conner said.
"This is not just a sort of arcane statutory issue about whether an ordinance is discriminatory, this is naked discrimination as well …dressed up as land use issues, as supposed parking issues, as supposed traffic problems, as supposed community character," Conner said.
The parties consolidated a preliminary injunction hearing with a final trial on the merits, set to begin in October.
In another recent case, the Lubavitch of Cambridge Inc. alleged it ran into opposition when it applied for a zoning variance from a zoning appeals board in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The variance was needed to replace three separate buildings currently serving as its Chabad, a Jewish community center, with one larger structure to meet the community's needs.
In 2023, the organization applied for a floor area ratio variance necessary to complete the renovations. At key hearings, members of a neighborhood association voiced beliefs that the community was asking for a "gift" or "a $3-4 million handout" from the city and that the Chabad would "overwhelm the neighborhood," according to the complaint.
"There is, unfortunately, some virulent opposition among individual members of the community, which is one of the things that we've seen as a hallmark of RLUIPA cases over the years," Weil Gotshal's Buchweitz said.
The Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeals ultimately denied the requested zoning variance after two key members ensured a third was temporarily replaced the day of the vote with an opponent of the plan, the Lubavitch of Cambridge alleged.
At the final hearing and others in the lead-up to the decision, land use officials questioned whether another Jewish religious institution was needed, shared concerns that the building would "change the character of the neighborhood," and asserted that the larger building was incompatible with the neighborhood, per the suit.
The parties are in the midst of mediation with a federal magistrate judge, Buchweitz said.
Trump DOJ Eyes RLUIPA Cases
In the months since President Donald Trump returned to office, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed statements of interest supporting the plaintiffs in the California, Pennsylvania and New York cases.
The Anchor Stone Christian Church, the plaintiff in the California case, brought claims against Santa Ana in February after it alleged that its plan to find a permanent home was thwarted by the Orange County city.
Following years of meeting in congregants' homes, Anchor Stone Christian Church's congregation grew large enough that the church began looking for a home. The church, composed largely of Taiwanese immigrants, located an office it hoped to convert into a sanctuary and approached city land use officials for their input, per the suit.
Two key planning officials led church leaders to believe they would have no issues securing a conditional use permit, a necessary approval as the property's zoning did not allow for churches as of right, Anchor Stone alleged.
An office building in Santa Ana is slated for redevelopment as Anchor Stone Christian Church's new home following a California federal judge's April preliminary injunction ruling. (Courtesy of O'Melveny & Myers)
In March, the DOJ filed a statement of interest backing Anchor Stone, arguing that the Santa Ana zoning code amounts to a facial violation of RLUIPA's equal terms provision, which bars local governments from implementing land use regulations that treat religious groups on less than equal terms with nonreligious groups.
The Santa Ana municipal zoning code forces churches to undergo an arduous process to obtain permitting in a "professional district" that isn't applied to equivalent secular buildings, the DOJ argued.
"The zoning code requires that, in the 'professional' district, churches must obtain a conditional use permit (CUP), an expensive, lengthy and discretionary review process, while comparable secular assemblies like museums, science centers, and art galleries, are allowed to operate there by right without a discretionary permit," the DOJ argued.
The court issued a preliminary injunction in April, allowing Anchor Stone to begin construction work at the property. A trial date is set for 2026, but the parties are also set to begin settlement talks in June.
Also among the cases that caught the DOJ's eye is one brought by Hope Rising Community Church, which sued Clarion, Pennsylvania, after the borough refused to issue a zoning variance needed to convert a car dealership into a church.
The church had sought out a new location for its 600-person congregation after outgrowing a previous facility. But after Hope Rising entered a purchase agreement for the property, a key zoning official warned that Clarion wouldn't issue a necessary variance, telling the pastor that the borough did not want any more churches.
Hope Rising filed suit in November, alleging that because the zoning ordinance held religious assemblies to higher standards than secular assemblies, it was a facial violation of RLUIPA's equal terms provision.
"The face of the ordinance violates RLUIPA because it allows for all sorts of secular places of assembly; city halls, theaters and things like that, but doesn't allow for religious assembly," Hope Rising counsel Dan Dalton said.
And in March, the DOJ voiced its support for Hope Rising's claims. The municipality's zoning code doesn't allow churches as of right in any of its three commercial districts, even though it permits analogous secular uses, it noted.
A trial date has not yet been set, and the parties are awaiting a ruling on the municipality's motion to dismiss.
The DOJ also filed a statement of interest in the Oyster Bay mosque's RLUIPA case. Oyster Bay's changes to its parking laws imposed more stringent requirements on places of worship than secular properties like theaters, libraries and museums, uses that courts have long used as points of comparison in RLUIPA cases, the DOJ argued in an April filing.
"RLUIPA's equal terms provision requires that parking regulations be applied equally to religious and comparable nonreligious assembly uses," the DOJ said. "Oyster Bay's parking regulations for places of worship are more onerous than comparable nonreligious assembly uses."
Lubavitch of Cambridge is represented by Yehudah Buchweitz and Rebecca J. Sivitz of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.
The Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal is represented by Crystal Huff and Leonard H. Kesten of Brody Hardoon Perkins & Kesten LLP.
Hope Rising Community Church is represented by Daniel P. Dalton and Joshua Davey of Dalton & Tomich PLC.
The borough of Clarion is represented by Teresa O. Sirianni and Connor M. Riley of Marshall Dennehey PC.
Muslims on Long Island is represented by Muhammad Faridi, Diana Conner, Nadav Ben Zur, Dalia Elmelige, Kailyn LaPorte and Peter Vogel of Linklaters LLP. Jacob I. Chefitz, Jonah Wacholder, Benjamin Seymour and Shaun Carr, who have since left Linklaters for other firms, also represented the group.
The town of Oyster Bay is represented by Edward M. Ross, Judah Serfaty and Nicholas Cinquina of Rosenberg Calica Birney Liebman & Ross LLP.
Anchor Stone Christian Church is represented by Timothy S. Durst, Nora N. Salem, Grant Gibson, Sarah Nelson, Jace Breedlove, Mason Malpass and Joshua Jilovec of O'Melveny & Myers LLP and Jeremiah G. Dys and Ryan Gardner of First Liberty Institute.
The city of Santa Ana is represented by Sonia R. Carvalho, Laura A. Rossini and Sandra M. Flores of the Santa Ana City Attorney's Office.
--Editing by Haylee Pearl.
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