PRICHARD, Ala. (ABP) — While sitting in the pews of a local church, Prichard City Council members unanimously approved a six-month moratorium on churches locating in business and commercial areas of town. The suspension, which passed April 21, has caused a stir in legal and religious communities, as many leaders labeled it religious discrimination.
Mayor Ron Davis, a Baptist deacon in this community near Mobile, introduced the motion to “raise revenue by reserving for business the real estate with the best commercial potential,” according to the Mobile Register. Since churches are exempt from taxation, Davis said, the move encourages congregations considering Prichard as a location to look toward more residential areas, the paper said.
The moratorium would give the city's planning commission a chance to study the mayor's recommendation, Shayla Beaco, Prichard community development director, told the Alabama Baptist.
“The mayor and his administration more than appreciates the social and religious contribution, and welcome the contributions, that the faith-based community brings to the city of Prichard,” Beaco said. “Because of our unique situation and economic sustainability, it is critical that we try to strike a balance with the faith-based community and their contribution as well as commercial operation that will also help to sustain our community's fledgling tax base. Over the next six months, we feel we will be able to find that balance.”
Because churches are the only organizations prohibited from commercial areas in this motion, the moratorium appears to violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, according to many leaders.
The act states, “No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.” It also forbids regulations that impose a “substantial burden on the religious exercise” of people or religious assemblies or institutions, including “the use, building or conversion of real property.”
Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C., said the Prichard City Council's regulation treats religious institutions unequally.
“Where churches are the only institutions being banned from the business and non-zoned areas, that is definitely a problem under the federal Religious Land Use law,” he said. “They are treating religious institutions on less than equal terms than non-religious institutions, and the law says you can't do that.”
Jim Swedenburg, coordinator of annuity and insurance for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, agreed. He recalled numerous Alabama cases of zoning laws prohibiting the construction or expansion of churches, but those rules applied to other businesses as well. “This seems unprecedented. From a layman's point of view, what the council has done appears to be a clear violation of the law.”
Thomas Wright, executive director of missions for Mobile Baptist Association, said the moratorium falls in line with the faulty perception that tax revenue is more important than other community aid from the church.
“Some political leaders have a prejudiced outlook that the church's spiritual and social contributions are not as valuable as a business' financial contributions to the tax base,” Wright said. “The contribution that churches make far exceeds any financial return that would come into an area.”
Chriss Doss, director of the Center for the Study of Law and the Church at Samford University, also said this motion follows the trend of evaluating the financial role of churches in incorporated areas. “Somebody with standing in the court will have to challenge it, or it will stand as the policy of the city,” he said.
Ed Litton, pastor of First Baptist Church of North Mobile, only four miles from Prichard, can appreciate the logic of the regulation but also feels the city's remedy is unconstitutional. “They cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion,” he said. “This is a bold attempt to prevent churches from building where they think it is necessary to build to reach their community.”
Nevertheless, Beaco said the mayor has not received any negative comments from religious leaders in the area. “All of the comments that he has received have been very positive,” she said. “They understand the need.”
According to the Mobile Register, Davis originally suggested the moratorium last 12-to-18 months but changed his mind after city attorney Willie Huntley Jr. advised him that six months would be less restrictive for churches and adequate time for land-use planning.
Huntley told the Alabama Baptist that building churches in the business district does not affect anyone's ability to practice their preferred religion. “It is a question of judicial interpretation of the rule,” he said.
“The city has got a legitimate purpose for imposing the moratorium because the city needed to be in a position to evaluate the infrastructure effect in the business district,” he said. “Those religious institutions that are already located in the business district area are not impacted or affected in any way.”
Huntley said he expects people to protest this ordinance and plans to evaluate them based on validity.
“One of problems that occurs in the city of Prichard is that individuals will open a space in a business district and put up a sign that they are a church when it really may not be a church or does not meet the guidelines of a recognized religion or religious institution,” he said. “This was to make sure that the city had the opportunity to evaluate the situation.”
Beaco added that she does not see any conflict between this motion and the law. “Churches can operate in other areas of the city,” she said. “There is still adequate space and property that is available for them.”
She said land-use planning would decrease conflict between churches and businesses zoned for commercial areas. “On occasion, in very isolated situations, the churches were opposed to business that we considered to be suitable commercial uses coming into those areas,” she said. “They felt there wasn't compatibility between the church and commercial businesses coming into the area.”
Eddie Brown, chief of staff for the Prichard mayor, added that some conflicts arise when businesses apply for certain licenses and they have to be a certain number of feet from churches. He said the council wanted to make sure they did not create further conflict between churches and those businesses.
— Sondra Washington is a correspondent for The Alabama Baptist.