## Facts

- Living Word Outreach Full Gospel Church and Ministries, Inc. sought to operate a church at 400 West Lincoln Highway in Chicago Heights, Illinois.
- The property was in a B-2 “limited service business district,” where the zoning ordinance listed churches as a special use allowed upon issuance of a special use permit by the city council.
- The property included a one-story, 4,000-square-foot building and a parking lot in a mixed-use area with nearby commercial and residential properties.
- Living Word applied for a special use permit in 1996; the zoning board of appeals and plan commission recommended denial, and the city council denied the application.
- The City relied primarily on a 1995 comprehensive plan designating the Lincoln Highway corridor for commercial development, asserting that noncommercial uses would harm economic development.
- Living Word continued holding services; the City sued for a permanent injunction to stop the use, and Living Word counterclaimed that the denial was arbitrary and that it met the ordinance criteria.
- After a bench trial, the circuit court denied the City’s injunction request and found Living Word satisfied the ordinance standards for a special use permit.
- The appellate court ultimately ruled for the City, treating commercial-corridor development as a compelling interest under statutory religious-freedom analysis.
- The Illinois Supreme Court reviewed the dispute and resolved it on zoning and administrative-law grounds.

## Issues

1. Whether the city council’s denial of a special use permit, based chiefly on consistency with a comprehensive plan, was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable where the zoning ordinance authorized churches as special uses in the district and the applicant satisfied the ordinance criteria.
2. Whether religious-freedom protections under statute or constitutional free-exercise provisions were violated by the permit denial.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate court and ruled for Living Word.
- The Court held the City’s denial of the special use permit was arbitrary and capricious because it was not grounded in the ordinance’s special-use standards and effectively treated the comprehensive plan as controlling law.
- The Court concluded the city council acted in an administrative capacity on a special use permit and was required to apply the ordinance rather than implement policy goals that would function as an unapproved zoning change.
- Because the permit denial was invalid under zoning and administrative principles, the Court did not rely on statutory or constitutional religious-freedom analysis to decide the case.

## Legal Principles

- A municipal decision to grant or deny a special use permit is an administrative act constrained by the standards set in the zoning ordinance.
- A comprehensive plan is advisory and may inform policy, but it does not itself alter the uses permitted by the zoning ordinance.
- A municipality may not deny an otherwise authorized special use based on generalized planning objectives that would, in practice, exclude an entire category of uses the ordinance permits.
- If a municipality intends to bar or restrict uses allowed by the ordinance, it must amend the zoning ordinance through proper legislative procedures rather than achieve the same result through ad hoc permit denials.
- A special use denial is arbitrary and capricious when unsupported by particularized evidence under the ordinance criteria (e.g., health, safety, welfare, neighborhood compatibility, or property values).

## Conclusion

The Illinois Supreme Court held that Chicago Heights unlawfully denied Living Word’s special use permit by relying on an advisory comprehensive plan to defeat an expressly permitted special use, rather than applying the zoning ordinance’s stated standards, making the denial arbitrary and capricious.


City of Chicago Heights v. Living Word Outreach Full Gospel Church & Ministries, Inc., 196 Ill. 2d 1, 749 N.E.2d 916 (Ill. 2001)