Peninsula Pentecostals submitted two renderings for its planned church in James City County last year. (Rendering by Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc./Courtesy James City County)
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the way James City County handled changes to its zoning regulations last year, which disallowed churches and other meeting places in the county’s industrial areas.
DOJ is gathering information from the county to find out whether it violated a federal civil rights law when it barred Peninsula Pentecostals in August 2013 from building on a piece of industrial land in Grove.
The department informed the county it had initiated an investigation in a June 17 letter from Steven Rosenbaum, chief of the department’s housing and civil enforcements section. Rosenbaum also requested the county provide an array of information for the investigation.
According to the letter, the department is working to determine whether the county violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). Under the act, localities cannot make a change to zoning regulations that treat religious groups differently than non-religious groups. Localities cannot completely bar churches, discriminate against a certain religious group or impose “a substantial burden on religious exercise without a compelling justification,” according to the letter.
“Our investigation is preliminary in nature, and we have not made any determination as to whether there has been a violation of RLUIPA by James City County,” the letter reads.
The Newport News-based church Peninsula Pentecostals in March 2013 signed a contract to purchase 40 acres of industrial land on Pocahontas Trail near the Newport News border. The church initially wanted to change the property’s zoning to allow a church, daycare, school, senior housing, convenience center and gas station on its property, but county staff said the rezoning was not likely to be approved.
At the end of April 2013, church representatives told the county they would go ahead with building a church and daycare, which were allowed on the property at the time. In response, the county said churches and daycares were only allowed because of “formatting errors and inadvertent omissions” made in January 2012. Under the county administrator’s instruction, staff went about writing changes to the industrial regulations to prevent about 40 types of businesses — including churches — to “focus more clearly on the industrial elements,” the administrator wrote in a 2013 email.
The changes to the county’s industrial regulations did not receive support from the Planning Commission, but gained approval from the Board of Supervisors in August 2013 on a 3-2 vote. After voting in favor of the changes, the supervisors said they would support at least hearing a case for rezoning the property, which the church has not yet submitted according to the county’s application tracking system.
James City County Attorney Leo Rogers said in a Monday interview this is the first time the county has received a complaint under RLUIPA. The county no longer uses the word “church” in its zoning documents, instead using “places of public assembly.” By eliminating words for religious buildings, the county is treating churches the same as moose lodges or other gathering places, Rogers said.
“We’ve never had a RLUIPA complaint before,” Rogers said. “We strenuously follow the provisions of RLUIPA and this is the first time there has been an inquiry. … We are preparing to get the Justice Department everything that they’ve requested so they can look into it and respond to the complaint they’ve received.”
Rogers said DOJ’s involvement is more of an inquiry into the matter rather than an investigation. He said the department begins these inquiries in response to complaints. Once the requested information is provided, the department might ask additional questions of people involved before make a decision, which could happen in one or more months depending on the department’s workload.
“They need to look at it to find a need for their involvement,” Rogers said.
A call and email for comment from the Department of Justice have not yet been returned.
Rogers has been communicating by phone and email with the department to fulfill its request for information, and has narrowed down the amount of information that will be handed over. Rogers said investigations like these initially take a “shotgun approach,” which the department did by asking for 10 years’ worth of information covering a variety of regulations and applications.
The justice department has agreed to a smaller amount of information, including:
- All county zoning laws, regulations, policies and plans. This includes the county’s Comprehensive Plan, which is intended to guide development over the next 20 years;
- Any previous county zoning laws, regulations, policies and plans dating to Jan. 1, 2004;
- All correspondence, notes, memos, resolutions, agendas, meeting minutes and meeting videos or recordings about changing the county’s zoning regulations for its limited business and industrial areas (M-1) and general industrial areas (M-2);
- All documents and recordings about Peninsula Pentecostal’s plan to build a new church in James City County;
- All applications – and a narrative about the outcome of each – and correspondence about any other church or “religious entity” attempting to build, expand or change a building in the county;
- Any application and explanation of outcome for any lodge, club, organization, meeting hall, funeral home, theater, indoor amusement center, school, or museum trying to build, expand or change a building in the two industrial areas.
“In the end we’re going to be providing the justice with more stuff than he asked for,” Rogers said.
He will be forwarding the information within the requested 21 days.
This notice is not the first the county has received from a federal department, Rogers said. Since Rogers started with the county in 1990, it has received inquiries about election issues, equal opportunity employment, whether police officers used excessive force in certain situations and other issues, but has never been found to be in violation.
Rogers said he is currently responding to another request from the Department of Justice, but he could not reveal information about the nature of the inquiry.
By Monday, the county had not received any complaints from the public about the way it handled changes to its zoning last year, Rogers said. He has been working with the church’s attorney, Tim Trant of Kaufman & Canoles, for the past six months to look into different options for Peninsula Pentecostals.
Trant has not yet responded to a call for comment.
Related Coverage:
- JCC Supes Vote to Change Zoning Ordinance; Churches No Longer Allowed in Industrial Areas
- Citizens Send Letters, Petition in Support of Church Plan to Expand to JCC Industrial Area
- JCC Supervisors to Consider Preventing Churches in Industrial Areas
- JCC EDA Supports Not Allowing Churches in Industrial Areas
- JCC EDA Asked to Take a Position in Proposed Industrial Zoning Changes
- JCC Planning Commission Recommends Allowing Churches on Industrial Land
- Newport News Church Submits Plan to Build Almost 130K Square-Foot Building in JCC Industrial Land
- Newport News Church Prompted Part of Proposed Changes to JCC Zoning Rules
- JCC Proposed Zoning Changes Draw Opposition from Newport News Church