## Facts

- Tent City 4 was a movable homeless encampment in the Puget Sound area, sponsored by Share/Wheel, typically housing about 60–100 people and relocating about every 90 days.
- Northshore United Church of Christ, located in the City of Woodinville and zoned R-1 (residential), agreed to host Tent City 4 as part of its religious mission to serve the homeless.
- The Church applied to the City for a temporary use permit to host the encampment on church property.
- Several months earlier, the City enacted a six-month moratorium on all land-use permit applications in the R-1 zone while it conducted a sustainable development study.
- Relying on the moratorium, the City refused to process the Church’s permit application.
- The City sought and obtained an injunction prohibiting the Church and Share/Wheel from operating Tent City 4 on the property without the required permits.
- The Church asserted the City’s refusal to consider the permit burdened religious exercise protected by article I, section 11 of the Washington Constitution.

## Issues

1. Whether article I, section 11 of the Washington Constitution permits a city to apply a generally applicable land-use moratorium to refuse to process a church’s permit application for a religiously motivated homeless encampment.
2. Whether refusing to process the permit application, rather than evaluating it on the merits, imposed a constitutionally impermissible burden on religious exercise.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and the trial court.
- The court held the City could not apply the moratorium to refuse to consider the Church’s temporary use permit request.
- The injunction, to the extent it depended on the City’s moratorium-based refusal to process the application, was improper.
- The matter was remanded with the City required to process the permit request, subject to constitutional limits on restricting religious exercise.

## Legal Principles

- Article I, section 11 provides strong protection for religious exercise and may require more than facial neutrality and general applicability when government action substantially burdens religious practice.
- Government action that forecloses access to the permitting process for a religiously motivated activity can constitute a substantial burden on religious exercise.
- Religious freedom may be limited for “peace and safety” concerns, but the government must show an adequate justification for burdens imposed on religious exercise.
- A municipality may regulate religiously motivated land uses through a permitting process, but it may not use a moratorium as an effective veto by refusing to process a church’s application absent sufficient constitutional justification.

## Conclusion

The court held that Woodinville’s R-1 permit moratorium could not be used to refuse to process the Church’s temporary use permit application to host a religiously motivated homeless encampment; the City had to consider the application through its permitting process consistent with article I, section 11.


City of Woodinville v. Northshore United Church of Christ, 211 P.3d 406 (Wash. 2009)