## Facts

- A residential subdivision was developed under a recorded common scheme of restrictive covenants limiting each lot’s use to “agricultural or residential purposes.”
- West Hill Baptist Church acquired a lot in the subdivision and planned to construct a church building.
- Two other religious organizations (a synagogue and a club associated with a religious community) owned additional subdivision lots subject to the same restrictions and joined the litigation by cross-petitions.
- Nearby homeowners and other lot owners opposed religious construction and sought to enforce the covenants as barring any nonresidential use, including houses of worship.
- The religious organizations sought a declaratory judgment that the covenants were invalid or unenforceable as applied to churches and synagogues, arguing:
  - enforcement would violate constitutional protections for freedom of religion, and
  - a later zoning ordinance permitting churches in the district superseded or undermined the private restrictions.

## Issues

1. Whether restrictive covenants limiting lots to “agricultural or residential purposes” are enforceable to bar construction of a church or synagogue despite a zoning ordinance permitting churches.
2. Whether enforcing such private covenants against religious organizations violates constitutional guarantees of free exercise of religion.
3. Whether a subsequently enacted zoning ordinance can abrogate, impair, or enlarge the effect of a valid restrictive covenant on the same land.

## Decision

- The court denied declaratory relief and upheld the covenants as valid and enforceable.
- The court held that permissive zoning did not nullify or supersede stricter private covenants restricting land use to agricultural or residential purposes.
- The court rejected the free-exercise challenge, treating the restrictions as neutral, private contractual limits on land use rather than governmental suppression of religion.
- As a result, the religious organizations could not construct their proposed religious buildings on the restricted subdivision lots.

## Legal Principles

- A zoning ordinance cannot abrogate, impair, or enlarge the effect of a valid restrictive covenant; enactment of zoning does not terminate, nullify, or affect a covenant’s validity.
- Private restrictive covenants and public zoning regulations operate independently; a parcel may be privately restricted more narrowly than zoning would require.
- Uniform covenants imposed under a common scheme are generally enforceable absent abandonment, obsolescence, or inequitable circumstances rendering enforcement contrary to public policy.
- Enforcing a facially neutral, generally applicable private land-use covenant against a religious user does not, without more, establish a constitutional free-exercise violation.

## Conclusion

The court enforced subdivision covenants limiting land to agricultural or residential use to prohibit construction of religious facilities, holding that later zoning permission for churches did not override private restrictions and that enforcement of the neutral covenants did not violate free-exercise protections.


West Hill Baptist Church v. Abbate, 261 N.E.2d 196 (Ohio Ct. Com. Pl. 1969)