09-26-2012 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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The opposite position is that religious assemblies have many characteristics that are not common to other assembly uses. In this view, while a church may have a worship service that attracts a large crowd for a relatively short period of time, it does so only at distinct times of the day or week, and probably includes a wide variety of other predominant uses, such as office, classroom, and even open space activities. The land use impacts of these facilities have distinct traffic generation patterns, utility needs, or public safety issues. This pattern is more closely related to schools that to other commercial uses, and under this approach, it should be legitimate to treat these uses differently than commercial assembly uses. RLUIPA issues should be raised only when two uses have substantially the same impacts. Little Canada's zoning ordinance places "Religious Institutions, such as Churches, Chapels, Temples, and Synagogues" in the Public /Semi - Public zoning district with schools, governmental facilities, and similar uses. Uses where other commercial assembly are common are located in the B -31B -4 zoning district (and by extension, the PUD district) — often grouped with other commercial recreational uses. Options for the City are limited. To follow a path where church assemblies would have broader flexibility to locate where commercial assemblies are now allowed, the City could do one of the following: 1. Add religious institutions to the commercial districts. 2. Redefine assembly uses and add "Public Assembly Uses" to the appropriate districts — presumably both the commercial and public districts where they are now allowed. To continue to distinguish between religious assembly and other commercial uses, the City may choose to retain the existing code language and direct any religious use to the Public /Semi - Public District. To strengthen this position, the City could amend its code to better define religious institutions, highlighting their distinguishing characteristics. This approach would give the zoning ordinance more "depth" in the event that a religious institution is seeking to challenge the City under an RLUIPA theory. The current definition of "Church" in the zoning ordinance is as follows: Church. A building, together with its accessory buildings and uses, where persons regularly assemble for religious worship and which building, together with its accessory buildings and uses, is maintained and controlled by a religious body organized to sustain public worship. Summary and Recommendation Planning staff believes that there are distinguishing characteristics between religious land uses and commercial land uses that justify differential zoning. The City is held to the requirements of RLUIPA, insofar as two land uses are the same. Where there are substantive differences, RLUIPA does not apply. As noted, of course, we are not 3