Castle Hills First Baptist Church v. The City of Castle HillsCastle Hills First Baptist Church, which was established in the early 1950s, is in the unfortunate position of being located within a jurisdiction that may well be the most anti-church city in the United States. A suburb of San Antonio, Texas, the city has gone to extraordinary lengths to drive churches out of town. Castle Hills First Baptist Church has enjoyed tremendous growth over the years, and in the late 1990s it acquired six residential lots accross the street for badly needed additional parking for its 17,000 members. Knowing that the church intended to use the lots for parking, the city allowed it to demolish and remove homes on the lots, but then refused to grant a special use permit allowing construction of the parking areas. In the ensuing months, city officials negotiated a proposed settlement that would allow the parking lots to be built, only to have the City Council vote them down. They also rejected three other applications to proceed with the project. A study done by the city's own traffic engineer showed that development of the church's new parking lot would actually improve traffic conditions in the area, but the report was ignored. During the course of its consideration, the city demanded that the church provide and pay for additional reports related to the aesthetics, drainage, air quality and traffic impact of the new parking lots. When the church met all the requirements, the city council simply ignored them and denied the permit. Today, while the 5.5 acre vacant property sits unused, many church members must park across a major highway from commercial mall parking lots nearby, risking life and limb dashing through heavy traffic. The city also refused even to accept an application for a permit to finish and occupy the fourth floor of one of the church buildings, and several years after it was built, it remains unoccupied despite the urgent need for additional space for church fellowship and education activities. Finally, after years of fruitless attempts to win city approval of the projects, the church filed suit in the summer of 2001. The Becket Fund joined the church's legal team in December, 2001. An amended petition filed with Texas District court (PDF format, 188K) on December 12, 2001, said that the City of Castle Hills has engaged in a "campaign against places of worship" over a period of many years. It outlines a long history of efforts by the city to force out or otherwise discourage religious institutions from locating in Castle Hills. In the 1970s, the city forced the Cornerstone Church to leave the city, refusing to allow it to expand, and ordering it to remove a TV tower only weeks after the city had allowed it to be built. In the 1990s it forced the Castle Hills United Pentacostal Church out of the city with similar tactics, and then took over the church building and turned it into city hall. The amended petition charged the city with constitutional violations of the church's rights of free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association, equal protection and due process. It also states that the city violated RLUIPA by discriminating against the church on the basis of religion, and that it violated the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act by placing "a substantial burden" on the church's religious exercise. On Friday, December 14, the case was removed to U.S. District Court at the request of the City of Castle Hills. On July 10, 2002, after many weeks of negotiations with city officials, a proposed settlement of the case was presented to the City Council. On August 9, 2002, Castle Hills suddenly changed direction and filed a motion for partial summary judgment, describing Castle Hills First Baptist as "a church which seems to grow like a cancer, feeding on homes in much the same way as a cancerous tumor feeds on healthy cells." The motion also challenged the constitutionality of RLUIPA. Shortly afterward, the insurance company that provides litigation coverage to the city served notice that it would no longer cover the cost of outside counsel in defending against the church's lawsuit. In September, during a City Council meeting at which the case was discussed, former mayor Bob Anderson, the leader of the battle against the church, became so disruptive that he had to be forcibly removed by Sheriff's deputies. On November 8, Mayor Dave Seyfarth resigned, accusing "a small group of political malcontents who seek to disrupt and hijack every meeting for their own personal political agenda" of fomenting extreme "disharmony" in the city. Anderson acknolwedged to the San Antonio Express-News that he was the target of Seyfarth's letter. The Church's response to the motion for partial summary judgment (PDF format, 571K), filed on November 13, 2002, charged that "the City of Castle Hills has declared war on Castle Hills First Baptist Church." It states that the very language of the City's motion before the court illustrates its "irrational fear of the Church," and that such statements "are unmistakably reprehensible and constitutionally problematic in a nation committed to religious liberty." On November 14, 2002 Castle Hills First Baptist Church filed its own motion for summary judgment (PDF format, 263K), asking the court to hold that 1) the appropriate standard of review for free exercise cases is strict scrutiny; 2) the city's denial of an adequate parking facility constitutes a substantial burden on the church's religious exercise; 3) the city's refusal to permit the church to use its fourth floor constitutes a substantial burden; 4) the city's asserted interests fail to reach the level of a "compelling government interest"; and 5) if the city can address any of its asserted concerns through the special use permit process, denial of a permit is not the means that are "least restrictive" on religious exercise. On November 21, 2002, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn intervened in the case with a cross-motion for summary judgment (PDF format, 453K), asking the court to rule that the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (TRFRA) is constitutional. (Among other things, the City of Castle Hills challenged the constitutionality of TRFRA.) On March 3, 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice filed an unopposed motion (PDF format, 13K) to intervene in the case to defend RLUIPA's constitutionality. The case was initially assigned to Senior Judge H. F. Garcia, who died a month after the lawsuit was filed. The case was then assigned to "Docket IV." Judge Orlando L. Garcia took over the case as the trial date of April 7, 2003 approached, but after several new judges were confirmed by the Senate to serve in the Western District of Texas, the case was reassigned once again, this time to Judge W.R. Furgeson, who moved from the Western District court in Midland to the main court in San Antonio. On March 3, 2003, Judge Furgeson signed an order continuing the trial to a later, unspecified date, pending his move from Midland to San Antonio. A hearing on cross-motions for summary judgment was held on October 22, 2003. Attorneys for the church (Becket Fund attorneys Anthony Picarello and Derek Gaubatz) and the city were joined by attorneys for the U.S. and Texas attorneys general, who defended the constitutionality of RLUIPA and the Texas RFRA. At the conclusion of the two and a half hour hearing, Judge Furgeson said he would issue a ruling in "three or four weeks." Just one week before the hearing, on October 14, a group of intervenors led by the National League of Cities and the International Municipal Lawyers Association and represented by attorney Marci Hamilton filed an amicus brief with the court and asked to participate in oral arguments. The brief, which challenges the constitutionality of RLUIPA, is virtually identical to the one the same group submitted in C.L.U.B. v. City of Chicago. (The brief on constitutionality submitted by the City of Castle Hills relied heavily on the C.L.U.B.brief.) On October 15, Judge Furgeson accepted the NLC amicus brief but denied the motion to present oral argument. In a 45 page decision (PDF format, 2.23MB - very large file!) dated March 17, 2004, Judge Furgeson granted the church's motion for summary judgment "in so far as the City's denial of the fourth floor permit is a substantial burden on religious exercise amidst a system of individualized assessments and is therefore subject to strict scrutiny. The City's denial of the fourth floor SUP was not subject to a compelling governmental interest, and therefore the Church's claims under 42 U.S. C. § 2000cc-(a) and 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment are granted." However, he declined to apply strict scrutiny to the denial of a permit for additional parking, and found that the city met rational basis scrutiny in that instance. Judge Furgeson upheld the constitutionality of RLUIPA as a proper exercise of congressional authority under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause, and held that it does not violate the Establishment Clause or separation of powers. He also noted that the Supreme Court decision in Employment Division v. Smith left some areas in which strict scrutiny . . . survived as the proper standard of review for laws that substantially burden religious exercise. One such exception to Smith's rule of general applicability and neutrality was the evaluation of a law characterized by 'individualized assessments.'" "Zoning, and the special use permit application process specifically, inherently depend upon a system of individualized assessment," Judge Furgeson wrote. "Moreover, courts have already recognized that land use regulations that require individualized assessment fall within the scope of the remaining strict scrutiny treatment left in the wake of Smith and Hialeah. This Court agrees. The City's land-use decisions in this case are not generally applicable laws." Finally, he said, "The Court takes this opportunity to encourage Castle Hills and all other similarly situated communities to engage in thorough and positive debate and negotiation on the issues of zoning of religious organizations and places of worship, recognizing that in the arena of religion, all parties need trod lightly, out of respect for the beliefs of the adherents and out of respect for the importance of religion to our larger American culture. Cities must govern the health, safety and welfare of their communities, but in so doing, should consider carefully the positive and supportive role that a place of worship will play in doing so." (Castle Hills First Baptist Church v. City of Castle Hills, case SA-01-CA-1149-HG) Media Coverage: Comment: Judge takes rational look at church case (San Antonio Express-News, guest comment by Bob Anderson, April 4, 2004) [Registration is required] Church hits parking bump (San Antonio Express-News, by Guillermo Contreras, March 20, 2004) Lawyer back on Castle Hills case (San Antonio Express-News, by Shalama C. Jackson, December 11, 2002) Castle Hills mayor quits in disgust (San Antonio Express-News, by Karen Adler, November 13, 2002) Castle Hills church battle appears headed to court (San Antonio Express-News, by Karen Adler, July 17, 2002) Church parking pact is on table (San Antonio Express-News, by Patrick Driscoll, July 13, 2002) Lot strife pits pulpit vs. City Hall (San Antonio Express-News, by Roy Bragg, December 30, 2001) D.C.-based firm has a few critics (San Antonio Express-News, by Roy Bragg, December 30, 2001) Cars often figure in fights involving religious centers (San Antonio Express-News, by Anne Miller, December 30, 2001) Your Turn: Showing Backbone (San Antonio Express-News, letter to the editor from Stan Grayson, December 28, 2001) Castle Hills accused unfairly (San Antonio Express-News, guest comment by Mayor Dave Seyfarth, December 20, 2001) [The Express-News did not post this article on their web site. The version presented here (PDF format, 98K) is in the form of a press release issued by the City of Castle Hills on December 12. Minor changes were made in the newspaper version in order to put it in the first person as an op-ed by the Mayor.] Church claims called not true (San Antonio Express-News, by Anne Miller, December 14, 2001) Church adds to its lawsuit (San Antonio Express-News, by Sonja Garza and Anne Miller, December 13, 2001) Church receives help in lawsuit (San Antonio Express-News, by Anne Miller, December 12, 2001) Articles & News Items
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