## Facts

- A Christian congregation and its pastor sought to relocate from a cramped rented facility to a vacant former department store in Yuma’s “Old Town” redevelopment district.
- The City’s zoning ordinance allowed many uses in Old Town as of right, including “membership organizations (except religious organizations),” multifamily dwellings, correctional facilities, and tax-exempt museums.
- The ordinance required “religious organizations and schools” to obtain a conditional use permit (CUP) to operate in Old Town.
- The church applied for a CUP to use the building for worship services.
- Nearby businesses and property owners opposed the application, citing Arizona law restricting issuance of liquor licenses within 300 feet of a church or K–12 school and asserting that the church would hinder the district’s entertainment-focused redevelopment plan.
- The Planning and Zoning Commission denied the CUP, relying on redevelopment incompatibility and the liquor-license buffer effect.
- The church sued seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, plus damages for financial losses allegedly caused by the denial.
- During the appeal, the church lost the property to foreclosure after carrying costs for both its existing worship space and the unused building.

## Issues

1. Whether claims for declaratory and injunctive relief became moot after the church lost ownership of the property.
2. Whether the zoning scheme violated RLUIPA’s equal-terms provision by requiring a CUP for religious assemblies while allowing similarly situated secular membership organizations as of right in the same district.

## Decision

- Declaratory and injunctive relief claims were moot because the church no longer owned the building and a court could not order issuance of a CUP for that property to the church.
- The damages claim was not moot because the church sought compensation for alleged losses tied to the CUP denial, including asserted financial harm leading to foreclosure.
- On the merits, the City violated RLUIPA’s equal-terms provision by imposing the CUP requirement on religious assemblies while not imposing it on similarly situated secular “membership organizations.”
- The court declined to reach constitutional claims (including Free Exercise) after resolving the case under RLUIPA.
- The judgment for the City was reversed in part and remanded for adjudication of damages.

## Legal Principles

- A claim for equitable relief becomes moot when intervening events make it impossible for a court to grant effectual relief; a claim for damages may remain live despite loss of the property at issue.
- RLUIPA’s equal-terms provision bars implementing land-use regulations that treat religious assemblies or institutions on less than equal terms than comparable nonreligious assemblies or institutions.
- A zoning ordinance that expressly excludes “religious organizations” from a category of permitted secular assemblies and subjects them to additional permitting burdens violates RLUIPA when similarly situated secular assemblies are allowed as of right.
- Redevelopment objectives and collateral state-law effects (such as liquor-license distance restrictions triggered by churches) do not cure a zoning scheme that draws a regulatory line based on religious status rather than a neutral, generally applicable land-use classification.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that Yuma’s Old Town zoning treated religious assemblies less favorably than comparable secular assemblies in violation of RLUIPA, while also holding that foreclosure mooted only equitable relief and leaving damages to be resolved on remand.


Centro Familiar Cristiano Buenas Nuevas v. City of Yuma, 651 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2011)