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The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that towns may legally prohibit church buildings in residential neighborhoods if noise and traffic might become a problem.

"We do not believe land use planners can assume anymore that religious uses are inherently compatible with family and residential uses," the three-judge panel wrote in its unanimous decision. "Religious uses may be, in some cases, incompatible with a place of 'quiet seclusion.'"

As megachurches continue to grow throughout the United States and houses of worship have become around-the-clock centers of activity, local governments are wrestling with how to balance the rights of homeowners with those accorded churches.

A recent USA Today article focused on this delicate balance reporting that more than 50 churches have recently filed lawsuits arguing over local government zoning restrictions. They claim First Amendment religious freedom protections, but they also have another powerful weapon: 2000's Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

A city attorney in one case told the newspaper that because churches are protected, they do as they like. He said: "If this was a Kmart, the city could've denied the special use permit without running afoul of federal law."

Religious land use experts told CT that last week's decision highlights struggles between churches and residents, but may not have much consequence on the future of the RLUIPA.

Concerns over traffic and noise led Abington Township, Pennsylvania, to pass a 1996 zoning board ordinance permitting only agriculture, single-family, conservation, and recreation use in R-1 residential districts.

"Abington had come up with an innovative way to handle the difficult issue of what to do with these churches and synagogues that have become 24-hour service operators," Marci Hamilton, a township attorney, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "They've said, 'No more in residential districts. It's too intense of a use.'"

Three years ago, Abington denied a Jewish congregation permission to build a synagogue citing fears of excessive noise, traffic, and pollution. The matter went to trial, and a district judge ruled that the 1996 ordinance violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by issuing special R-1 exemptions to a riding club, a kennel, and a country club but not to the synagogue.

The township appealed the verdict. Last Wednesday's ruling struck the decision and sent the case back to district court for a rehearing.

Because the Abington Township verdict was based on the 14th Amendment (equal protection of the law), Patrick Korten of The Becket Fund told CT that the appeals court's decision has little consequence on the RLUIPA, the 2000 law still being defined in courts.

The law says that governments cannot prohibit religious exercise through zoning laws unless it is the "least restrictive means of furthering … compelling governmental interest."

The Becket Fund, which represented the Jewish congregation, filed the case as a RLUIPA lawsuit, but the district court judge didn't cite the act. "He came up with a ruling that we certainly agreed with, but he did not use the complaint that we offered him," he said. "Now we will go back to district court and present our RLUIPA case. As far as we are concerned, it really would have been better to decide it under RLUIPA in the first place."

Several pending cases are now challenging the constitutionality of RLUIPA, but no one interviewed by CT expects it to go to the Supreme Court soon.

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October (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46