"I don't know if there's going to be an impact," Gorgone said. "I don't know how noisy they're going to be. They don't really tell you much. Every time you talk to them, it's a different use, and they never really answer your questions."
Religion vs zoning Law prompts planning boards to bend rules
By Chris McKenna Times Herald-Record cmckenna@th-record.com
Monroe – The big, metal building peeking through the trees behind John and Janet Gorgone's backyard had always been a warehouse, used most recently by a beer distributor. But with the help of a federal law enacted five years ago to protect religious groups from discriminatory zoning, this cavernous structure will take on a radically new life – as a Hasidic Jewish school, synagogue and wedding hall. The full name of the law is the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, but lawyers invoking it in town meeting halls and courtrooms across the country since President Clinton signed it into law in September 2000 use the acronym RLUIPA, pronounced "ar-loopa." The law prohibits any land-use rules or decisions that impose a "substantial burden" on a religious group. While the statement is open to interpretation, lawyers representing religious groups in zoning disputes take it to mean that their clients' desire to build or expand their church or synagogue supersedes any regulations that get in the way. The law's supporters say it protects churches and synagogues whose building projects might otherwise be stopped by NIMBY pettiness and, in some cases, hostility to religion. "The Constitution, the last draft I saw, had a right to religion but not a right to zone," said Dennis Lynch, a Nyack lawyer who's involved in an RLUIPA case in Rockland County. But lawyers for local boards engaged in these disputes argue that their opponents are overstating the law's intent. "Lawyers are using it as a club," said Kevin J. Plunkett, a partner in the White Plains offices of Thacher, Proffitt & Wood. "Quite frankly, I think it's a rubber club. I don't think RLUIPA trumps zoning." The law could find especially fertile ground in the zoning and lifestyle conflicts boiling up between ultra-Orthodox groups and their neighbors in Rockland, Orange and Sullivan counties. Indeed, Lynch, while representing Kiryas Joel real-estate interests, has already invoked RLUIPA in the unfolding battle between the Hasidic community and neighboring towns over Kiryas Joel's plans to expand. When Woodbury residents petitioned last year to create a new village encompassing most of the town, Lynch sent Woodbury Supervisor Sheila Conroy a letter saying the proposal was intended to ward off the high-density housing of Hasidic Jews and would violate RLUIPA and the Fair Housing Act. In the Rockland County Town of Ramapo, which has a large population of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews, town officials cited RLUIPA last year when they changed their zoning to allow religious dormitories, despite objections from residents and some of Ramapo's villages. The same threat induced one of those villages, Airmont, to surrender its opposition to plans to build a yeshiva with 30 big apartments and dormitories for 170 students in a neighborhood of single-family homes. That still wasn't enough. The federal government sued Airmont under RLUIPA and the Fair Housing Act in June because it doesn't allow religious dormitories in its zoning. In Monroe, RLUIPA emerged like a magic wand to rescue Congregation Shari Torah's foundering proposal to open a synagogue, school and wedding hall in the former Manhattan Beer Distributors warehouse on Larkin Drive. Schools normally aren't allowed in that heavy-industry zone. But after an initial attempt to portray the school as a permitted trade shop, the congregation came back with arguments about the special status of a religious school. The town Planning Board and its lawyer readily concurred. "When you are dealing with religion, religion trumps all zoning," board Chairman Charles Finnerty said during a hearing on the project in July. His board approved the first phase of the building conversion in August. Janet Gorgone, who can see the warehouse from her back porch, said she has no problem with a school operating in the building. But she worries about the noise from weddings and finds it frustrating that she and her neighbors can't get answers to their questions at meetings. "I don't know if there's going to be an impact," Gorgone said. "I don't know how noisy they're going to be. They don't really tell you much. Every time you talk to them, it's a different use, and they never really answer your questions."
The history behind RLUIPA Congress drafted legislation to prevent government from hampering "religious exercise" after a Supreme Court ruling in 1990 appeared to weaken the special status traditionally granted to religious groups and the practice of religion. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed and signed into law in 1993. The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1997, sending Congress back to the drawing board. Three years later, senators presented a revised version called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). It used language similar to the previous law but focused more narrowly on land-use regulations and prisoners' rights. It prohibited any land-use regulation that "imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that the imposition of the burden on that person, assembly or institution is in the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." Politicians from both parties were so enthusiastic that the House and Senate passed it on July 13, 2000, without any objections. President Clinton signed RLUIPA into law on Sept. 22, 2000. Three months ago, in a case dealing with prisoners' rights, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law and the principle of religious accommodation. Chris McKenna
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