ACLJ Victory: Judge Protects Rights of Ministry in TN
The U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee ruled that the city of
The Court rejected the city's contention that, as long as it had a pending ordinance that addressed Layman Lessons' intended use of this property, it could indefinitely delay acting on the ministry's application, said Larry Crain, a senior ACLJ attorney and lead attorney for the plaintiff. In essence, the court ruled that 'justice delayed is justice denied.'
Problems arose for Layman Lessons, a Christian ministry formed to aid the homeless and destitute, when it first applied for a use permit for a commercially zoned property in Millersville, a town 17 miles north of
Judge Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr. concluded that through these maneuverings, the city denied Layman Lessons its constitutional rights in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). As a further hurdle to the ministrys use of the land, the city imposed a so-called buffer strip requirement on the property. Such strips, which require an expensive privacy fence to be constructed around the property, had heretofore only been required when a commercial property abutted a residential property. The Layman Lessons' property was surrounded on all sides by commercially zoned properties.
The city of
Judge Wiseman's ruling confirms that