Ward v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville & Davidson Cnty.

• Decision Date: 17 April 2019
• Docket Number: No. M2018-00633-COA-R3-CV,M2018-00633-COA-R3-CV
• Parties: DAYLE WARD, ET AL. v. METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE, ET AL.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

DAYLE WARD, ET AL. v. METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE, ET AL.

No. M2018-00633-COA-R3-CV

COURT OF APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE

January 8, 2019 Session

April 17, 2019

Appeal from the Chancery Court for Davidson County

No. 17-768-I

Claudia Bonnyman, Chancellor

In this certiorari review of a decision of the Board of Zoning Appeals of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, the Appellants challenge the Board's grant, as authorized by ordinance and state and federal law, of an accommodation from the zoning requirements applicable to property owned by a church, on which it sought to build 22 micro-homes to house the homeless. Appellants argue that the development should be subject to the zoning laws and procedures because the development would be constructed, owned, and operated by a lessee of the property that was not a religious institution or assembly or otherwise exercising religion and, consequently, applying the zoning laws to the development would not adversely affect the church's exercise of religion. The Appellants also argue that the project did not meet the standards for the accommodation set by the state and federal laws. The trial court upheld the decision of the Board. Upon our review, we conclude that material evidence supports the Board's decision and that the decision is not contrary to law, and is not arbitrary or capricious; accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Chancery Court Affirmed

RICHARD H. DINKINS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which FRANK G. CLEMENT, JR., P.J., M.S., and ANDY D. BENNETT, J., joined.

L. Marshall Albritton, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellants, Bobbie Bradford, Dayle Ward, Steve McMillan, Andrew Barrett, Virginia Bradshaw, Alice Cammuse, Jean Delffs, Rick Harris, Jill Fagan, Kenneth Fox, Brenda Photivihok, Robert Stapleton, Jessica Marie Van Dyke, Sherry Diane McCall, and Irene Kelley.

Jon Cooper, Director of Law, Lora Barkenbus Fox, and Catherine J. Pham, Nashville, Tennessee, for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee.

Lisa M. Carson, Franklin, Tennessee; and George A. Dean, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Glencliff United Methodist Church, Inc., Bishop William McAlilly, and Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church.

OPINION

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Glencliff United Methodist Church ("GUMC"), is located on a 5.97 acre parcel of land on Glencliff Road in Nashville; it is bordered by Interstate 24 and Thompson Lane, and is currently zoned RS 10 (residential single-family with a 10,000 square-foot minimum lot size). The church sought to use a part of its property to construct a project called "The Glencliff Urban Village," which would consist of 22 "micro-homes" for homeless persons; 19 of the homes would be 200 square feet each and 3 would be 400 square feet. On December 30, 2016, the Church's senior pastor and its head trustee sent a letter to the Metro Zoning Administrator requesting a "reasonable accommodation"¹ pursuant to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA")² to use the property in that manner; the accommodation sought would have relieved the project from complying with the regular requirements for property zoned RS 10. The letter stated, in part:

For years, Open Table Nashville (OTN) in partnership with other homeless and affordable housing advocacy organizations has been considering the needs of our homeless community and trying to envision a means for providing a high quality bridge housing solution for the most vulnerable in our community. Given the need, GUMC has identified property on our campus that is minimally used and that we believe is suitable for a project we are calling The Glencliff Urban Village. This project would involve the construction of code-compliant micro-homes thatwould house participants in a program moving them toward permanent housing. Given the church's mission, we believe this project is zoning compliant under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), and this letter is intended to document how this project is consistent with the mission of our organization.

GUMC is a congregation of The United Methodist Church, an organization that clearly believes that part of our calling is to help others as they have need . . . The call to love our neighbors is at the core of our beliefs as United Methodists, and since the formation of our movement, that call has been fleshed out in tangible ways.

At a congregational level, GUMC has recognized our location in a high poverty community, and has recognized that our calling and mission must involve engagement with the needs of our neighborhood.

The call to help our friends experiencing homelessness mo[v]e toward physical, emotional, and spiritual wholeness leads us to believe that the establishment of the Glencliff Urban Village is part of the core mission of the UMC, and as such is why we believe that the use of our property at 2901 Glencliff Rd falls under the provision of RLUIPA allowing for this project.

Based upon that letter, the Zoning Administrator of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County ("Metro") issued a letter on January 17, 2017, granting the Church's request for an accommodation, pursuant to RLUIPA and the Tennessee Religious Freedom Restoration Act (TRFRA), Tennessee Code Annotated section 4-1-407, on the basis that "[p]roviding transitional housing is one method of serving [the Church's] religious mission." This decision permitted the Church to use a portion of its property "for transitional housing in the form of code-compliant micro-homes."

Mike Freeman, a member of the Metropolitan Council, appealed the Planning Administrator's decision to the Metropolitan Board of Zoning Appeals ("the Board"). A hearing was held on May 18, 2017, at which a lease between the Church and Open Table Nashville ("Open Table"), a nonprofit agency that provides outreach services to the homeless population and rents office space from the Church, was introduced into the record; the lease provided that Open Table would construct and own the homes. The administrative record also contains numerous letters supporting and opposing the project; petitions containing the signatures of neighbors who opposed the project; a concept plan for the project; a letter from Bishop McAlilly, the Resident Bishop for the Nashville Episcopal Area of the United Methodist Church; Resolution 3261 from the General Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church, titled "Homelessness in theUnited States"; and excerpts from the annual journals of the Tennessee Conference from years 2012-2016 recognizing Open Table Nashville as an "Advance Special."³

After hearing from those in support of and opposed to the granting of the reasonable accommodation, the Board of Zoning Appeals voted 5-2 to uphold the Zoning Administrator's grant of an accommodation to the Church, as reflected in the January 17 letter; an order to that effect was issued on May 25.

On July 21, 2017, Dayle Ward and fourteen other individuals residing near the Church (collectively, "Petitioners"), whose counsel had participated in the May 18 hearing before the Board expressing their opposition to the grant of the accommodation, filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated sections 27-8-101 et. seq. and 27-9-101 et seq.,⁴ in Davidson County Chancery Court seeking review of the Board's decision to affirm the accommodation granted to the Church. The suit named GUMC, the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church, and Bishop William McAlilly (collectively, "GUMC") and the Board as Respondents. The petition alleged that the decision was illegal, arbitrary, and capricious; specifically, the Petitioners argued:

35. The Church's exercise of religion is not impermissibly burdened, impinged, or curtailed, in violation of RLUIPA or TRFRA by requiring Open Table's project, the Village, to be subject to Metro's planning and zoning laws and procedures. The Church will not construct, develop, own, maintain, or operate Open Table's Village, and thus, decisions by Metro, the BZA, and other authorized boards and commissions, and the application of Metro's planning, zoning, and land use laws to Open Table's Village, will not affect the exercise of religion by the Church. The Church may wishto continue leasing its offices or its land to Open Table, and the United Methodists may wish to donate to Open Table, but those actions are not prohibited by Metro's planning and zoning laws.

36. Open Table, as nonprofit organization that has not been shown to be a religious institution or a religious assembly or organized around or promoting a religion, is not exercising religion in the construction, development, ownership, maintenance, or operation of its Village, and thus, neither RLUIPA or TRFRA apply.

The Chancellor held a hearing on February 12, 2018, and entered an order on March 13, holding that that the Board did not exceed its jurisdiction or act fraudulently and affirmed the decision. The court also held that the Petitioners failed to establish that the Board acted without material evidence to support its decision or that such decision was arbitrary or capricious, as well as that Petitioners failed to establish "under the specific facts of this case, that enforcing the neutral residential zoning laws and subdivision regulations against the Church was essential to furthering a compelling governmental interest."

The Petitioners appeal, stating the following issue for our review:

Whether the Davidson County Chancery Court erred in affirming the decision of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, by its Zoning Administrator, as affirmed by the Metro Board of Zoning Appeals, to exempt from compliance with Metro's planning and zoning regulations a 22

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