In
City Walk - Urban Mission Inc. v. Wakulla County Florida, (ND FL, July 9, 2020), a Florida federal district court granted a preliminary injunction requiring county officials to allow a church to operate a religious transition home for 3 to 6 unrelated adults. Neighbors had begun to complain when they learned that the home included registered sex offenders. The court said in part:
Defendant amended its Land Use Development Code, limiting Plaintiff to housing only two unrelated adults in the three-bedroom home at a given time.... The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ... provides broader protection for religious exercise than is available under the First Amendment. RLUIPA prohibits, among other things, a government from imposing a substantial burden on an entity’s or person’s religious exercise unless the government demonstrates that the imposition of the burden is in furtherance of a compelling interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest.
This Court finds Defendant’s two-adult limitation amounts to a substantial burden on Plaintiff’s religious exercise and that Defendant has failed to show that the burden imposed is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling interest.
