Church versus community

COEUR d'ALENE — With a potential federal lawsuit on the line, Kootenai County commissioners unanimously voted to remand a conditional use permit application by the Hayden Lake Seventh-day Adventist Church back to the hearing examiner for further review.

The proposed development, a 41,000-square-foot building sitting on a 10-acre parcel in the agricultural zone of Lancaster and Rimrock Road, would come with a private school and place of worship. The school would meet Monday and Tuesday and a regular Service would be held Saturday.

"The goal is to nurture students to be thinkers and innovators," Pastor David Morgan said.

Thursday's decision comes after David Callahan, Kootenai County community development director, and his staff became concerned about the link between the church's application and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

RLUIPA demands that no government entity, including counties, impose or implement a land use regulation that imposes a substantial burden on a person's, assembly's or institution's religious exercise. The only provision around the act would be if the government demonstrated that the imposition of that burden on the person, assembly, or otherwise is of compelling interest and is the least restrictive means of supporting said interest.

This is considered a strict scrutiny test, only resolved by narrowly tailored laws and often challenging to overcome.

"It has to be of compelling, not just ration basis," Pat Braden, Kootenai County's legal counsel said. "There can't even be an important government interest, it has to be compelling, and the burden in question has to be the least restrictive means of furthering that interest."

Braden warned that applying strict scrutiny is difficult in any given case, and he said most RLUIPA issues that go before court fail.

"What I'm saying is the application does not necessarily need to be approved, but it better be a pretty dang good reason," Braden said. "Not just the type of reasons we would normally deny an application for."

While Braden, Callahan, and the board agreed the lack of RLUIPA consideration was at no fault of the examiner, it was a flaw that needs to be revisited. By the recommendation of both Callahan and Braden, it was unanimously decided to have the previous hearing examiner, Joan Woodward, review the case before opening up the application for secondary deliberations and public comments.

The Hayden Lake Seventh-day Adventist church currently holds services and programs at its Government Way address. After a cost analysis reported that renovating and remodeling its facility would cost nearly the same as building a new one, the church opted for the latter.

At the meeting, many neighbors around the potential project expressed opposition to the application.

"They say the fees for changing everything so they can have a school is monumental, well it's monumental to build a new building," Lois Moore said. "Encourage them to use what they have. They have plenty of property down there."

Keith Wacholz, who has lived near the project's proposed location at Lancaster and Rimrock Road for about 20 years, fears this construction will drive out residents.

"The reason why we live there and moved there was to move from the congestion," Wacholz said. "It's rural, and I'd like to keep it that way for my people and the people who move there because it is a very special countryside."

Members of the congregation did not attend the meeting, Morgan later informed, as they were unaware that public comment would be allowed. Instead, they had met at the church in prayer for a positive outcome. Despite their nonattendance, one audience member, Russell McLain, did present a supporting statement. McLain, who said he'd attended every meeting the school has held on the subject, believes it would benefit the community.

"They are going to run a tight program. I've looked at the curriculum, and it's going to be a good school," McLain said. "I think you guys need to weigh out the benefit and competition it will bring to our schools. Our public schools have only gotten better with the competition from Charter, STEM, and other programs."