Pro-Faith Law Firm Helps Church Clear Zoning Hurdle
by Allie Martin
November 10, 2003
(AgapePress) - A Wisconsin city has agreed to allow a church to settle in a downtown area after initially denying the congregation's request to relocate.Earlier this year, New Life Christian Fellowship, a church in DePere, Wisconsin, was denied a conditional-use permit for an old furniture store it had bought. City officials said the church's intended use of the downtown building was incompatible with the surrounding area, even though another church had recently been granted a zoning permit.
California-based Pacific Justice Institute filed a lawsuit alleging multiple violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. PJI president Brad Dacus says the city had a change of heart.
The city decided to settle after PJI evoked this act, signed into law only a few years earlier. Dacus calls this law, which was designed to protect the rights of churches and other religious institutions, "a powerful federal statute" and says after DePere officials finished looking carefully at it, "they realized they were going to lose."
The legal expert feels other cities need to learn that the law guarantees churches the right to build or establish themselves in virtually all areas. The PJI spokesman says his group hopes other cities will look at the DePere example and learn that "no matter how much they may not like churches ... or [having] churches in certain areas, the bottom line is that churches are protected to be able to build and go those places where they are legitimately called to go."
Dacus says the city's settlement has resulted in a change in DePere zoning ordinance that makes it easier for religious communities to locate near the downtown area.
