Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case about a Kentucky church that wanted to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary beside its parking lot. In Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist v. Frederic, the Court will consider when a zoning restriction that blocks a project like that becomes a substantial burden on religious exercise under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
The Missionaries sought a conditional use permit and variances to build the shrine at Our Lady of Lourdes in Park Hills. The church predates the city’s 1974 zoning ordinance, which limits churches to arterial streets. The Board of Adjustment approved the requests, and neighbors sued.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals held that the Board exceeded its authority by expanding a nonconforming use. The Kentucky Supreme Court, applying the Sixth Circuit’s Livingston Christian Schools framework, held that blocking the shrine imposed no substantial burden because the church could build a smaller one on land it already owned.
The question the Supreme Court will answer this Term is whether a land-use regulation that prohibits a religious institution from building a religious structure on its own property constitutes a “substantial burden” under RLUIPA.
