Cypress land seizure "an effort to subvert" federal court's jurisdictionJul 30, 2002
The attempt by the City of Cypress, California to seize the property of Cottonwood
Christian Center is "but the latest tactic in their ongoing, years-long
strategy to supplant a planned church with a preferred retail establishment,"
according to a Cottonwood reply brief (PDF format, 242K) filed with U.S. District
Court for the Central District of California late Monday. A hearing on the church's
request for a preliminary injunction to block the city's land grab will take
place next Monday, August 5, at 8:30 a.m. in courtroom 9D in the federal courthouse
in Santa Ana.
"The city insists "that their complaint in eminent domain, filed
in May 2002, should take precedence" over Cottonwood's lawsuit, which was
filed in January 2002. "In perhaps their most desperate argument,"
the reply brief notes, the city makes "the facially implausible argument
that despite the immediate prospect of permanently losing its real estate, Cottonwood's
claim is not yet ripe." The city is attempting "a once-and-for-all
seizure of [the church's] entire interest in the property, done in violation
of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution."
The city insists that because the property at issue is currently vacant, the
church's Free Exercise of Religion is not burdened. "The city conveniently
forgets, however, just why it is that Cottonwood's land is still vacant more
than two years after Cottonwood first applied for permission to build its church.
It is still vacant only because of the City's ongoing, unconstitutional denial
of a conditional use permit," the brief points out. "After having
unlawfully kept Cottonwood from building its church, Defendants cannot now claim
some benefit because the property is only ‘vacant land.'"
The brief also asserts that courts must apply the highest standard—"strict
scrutiny"—to cases of this sort, both because the city is making
"individualized assessments" and because several distinct constitutional
rights are implicated at the same time. Strict scrutiny analysis requires that
the city have a truly "compelling government interest" and advance
that interest by the "least restrictive means" available, neither
of which can be said about Cypress' actions.
Finally, the brief argues that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized
Persons Act [RLUIPA] clearly applies in this case. "If RLUIPA were construed
not to cover eminent domain, any city brazen enough to condemn church property
could evade RLUIPA in precisely the way" that Cypress is attempting here.
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