A small Maui church's thwarted plan to build a chapel on agricultural land has escalated to a challenge of the constitutionality of state land use laws to be heard today in Honolulu federal court. Federal court set to hear
church property disputeA Maui congregation argues land
use rules violate recent U.S. lawBy Mary Adamski
madamski@starbulletin.comAttorneys from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, will represent Hale O Kaula church in the hearing before U.S. District Judge Samuel King Jr.
U.S. Justice Department attorneys from Washington are also here to address Maui County's claim that the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 is unconstitutional.
The church is asking King to grant a preliminary injunction to stop Maui County and state officials from requiring a special-use permit to develop its 5.8-acre site on Anuhea Place in Pukalani. It also is asking the judge to declare unconstitutional and invalid the portions of state law, Land Use Commission rules and Maui County Code that require a permit for a church building on lands designated agricultural, rural, conservation and residential, and to award compensatory damages to the church.
The suit alleges that the state and county "substantially burden the religious exercise of, and wrongfully discriminate against, churches in general and Hale O Kaula and its members in particular."
Hawaii is just the latest arena where government agencies are grappling with the new federal law that prohibits a government agency from imposing land use requirements that put a "substantial burden" on the exercise of religion, said Becket Fund spokesman Patrick Korten. It has been challenged or ignored by city or state officials in several states -- Becket Fund alone has 29 cases pending concerning the law.
Korten said that many cases are "rooted in the opposition of a few noisy neighbors." On Maui, neighbors in the Pukalani subdivision who opposed the church cited concerns about increased traffic and noise. Korten noted that one neighbor has a rodeo ring on his property, and that the Kamehameha Schools Maui campus is just downslope.
The 60-member nondenominational congregation bought the Kula land 10 years ago and has built a minister's residence and an agriculture building on it. But they must continue to worship in the Haiku chapel they have had for 30 years.
The Maui Planning Commission refused a special-use permit for church construction in 1995 and again in June 2001, when Hale O Kaula sought to build a 1,768-square-foot chapel as a second floor of its agricultural building on the site.
Korten said that only once before, on May 8 in Philadelphia, did a federal judge specifically uphold the constitutionality of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act being applied to states and municipalities.
The Becket Fund specializes in First and 14th Amendment cases and represents a broad spectrum of religions. In one recent case, lawyers succeeded in getting the city of Bedford, N.Y., to grant a previously denied permit to a small Zen Buddhist temple.