An expert on a federal law that protects houses of worship from local zoning laws says the Salvation Army would have a strong case if it chose to appeal the city’s decision to prohibit a soup kitchen on Lester Avenue.
The Planning and Zoning Commission rejected the application last month because it violated basic zoning rules, according to Chairman Bart Flaherty.
A soup kitchen isn’t permitted in that Lester Avenue residential zone, Flaherty said. And the Commission thought the Salvation Army didn’t have enough parking for its proposed soup kitchen.
“As an aside, they had woefully inadequate parking for what they wanted to do,” Flaherty said.
The Salvation Army building at 26 Lester Ave., near the Riverside Apartments, recently renovated a basement kitchen with the hopes of opening a soup kitchen for the community.
There is also a chapel used for Sunday services on the building’s first floor.
The soup kitchen plans were in the works for several years, according to Maj. Theresa Burkholder, of the Ansonia Salvation Army, who said the community need was identified before she started working in the city.
Burkholder said she is not planning to appeal the city’s decision.
Burkholder is awaiting direction from the Salvation Army before she moves forward, but said she was hoping now to simply secure the right to serve food at church functions.
However, the Salvation Army would have a strong federal case if it chose to pursue one, according to Roman Storzer, a civil rights attorney in Washington, D.C.
Storzer points to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, a federal bill that became law during the Clinton administration.
The law, in some cases, gives houses of worship freedom from local zoning regulations.
Storzer said the Salvation Army would simply have to answer whether serving food in the basement soup kitchen is part of the church’s religious mission.
“I assume feeding the poor is part of the organization’s religious exercises,” Storzer said.
Those religious exercises, and a broad range of others, are provided for under RLUIPA and the First Amendment, Storzer said.
As long as the act didn’t interfere with the public health and well-being — meaning as long as the health department approved the serving standards — Storzer said the local board had little right to interfere.
“RLUIPA doesn’t limit what can be considered religious exercise,” Storzer said. “Anything that is motivated by religious belief could be considered.”
That is precisely why the federal law should be amended, according to Sara Bronin, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut Law School.
Theoretically, the law could be used to allow religious groups to build anything from housing subdivisions to credit unions, Bronin said.
“A religious institution will use RLUIPA to threaten city governments with a lawsuit to protect auxiliary uses — things like soup kitchens, church halls, even bowling alleys — because they claim those auxiliary uses are central to the worshiping of the church,” Bronin said.
“I don’t think Congress necessarily intended for the law to be used that way, but that is the way it is being used,” she said.
But Storzer said that use of the law was intended.
“The most important implication of RLUIPA is that it generally operates to get the parties to work out a compromise,” Storzer said.
“It doesn’t give all the power to one side or another, but says if the government has a legitimate interest, let them try to work it out.”
