Colorado Court Allows Church Challenge To Parking Limits

In Town of Foxfield v. Archdiocese of Denver, (Colo. Ct. App., Aug. 10, 2006), a Colorado appellate court considered challenges to an ordinance that restricted parking near the rectory of a Catholic parish. The rectory is used for housing, religious instruction, and gathering of parishioners, and the property also contains a small chapel. The court held that church activities affect interstate commerce sufficiently to make RLUIPA applicable. It also held that the parking ordinance's delegation of exclusive enforcement authority to citizens constituted governmental enforcement through individualized assessment under RLUIPA. The court held that the ordinance at issue was not exempt from Colorado's Freedom to Gather and Worship Act as a "general parking ordinance". Finally it held that the trial court should have applied strict scrutiny in assessing the constitutionality of the parking ordinance because it is not a neutral law of general applicability. There was evidence that it was specifically passed to target the rectory, and its enforceability only after the city receives written complaints from three neighbors creates the possibility of arbitrary enforcement. The decision is reported on by today's Rocky Mountain News. The Becket Fund provides background on the case.