Cornerstone Bible Church, James Bzoskie v. City of Hastings

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• remanding for district court to apply rational basis review where zoning ordinance excluding churches appeared to reflect “unequal treatment of similarly situated entities” and lacked “any justification beyond the conclusory statements in . . . affidavits”
• municipal ordinance excluding churches from zoned area “has no impact on religious belief and should not be construed as directly regulating religious-based conduct”
• “The City’s affidavits are conelusory and speculative, pointing only to potential secondary effects without the benefit of any study or factual support.”
• “Absent evidence of the City’s intent to regulate religious worship, the ordinance is properly viewed as a neutral law of general applicability”
• “The City has not provided factual support for the assumptions that underlie its exclusion of churches, and the alleged secondary effects of churches on commercial activity remain a disputed factual issue.”
• insufficient factual support where city produced only conclusory affidavits stating churches would displace potential commercial uses and increase potential for traffic, parking and land-use conflicts; city failed to conduct any studies on the impact of churches on commercial activity

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).