Incommensurable Uses: RLUIPA's Equal Terms Provision and Exclusionary Zoning in River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest

Abstract

On July 2, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in River of Life Kingdom Ministries v. Village of Hazel Crest held that the “equal terms” provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) requires a comparison of religious and secular land uses with respect to any accepted zoning criteria. In so doing, the Seventh Circuit confronted a circuit split in the application of the equal terms provision and carved out a compromise between competing concerns about control over land-use regulations. This Comment discusses the difficulty of equal treatment within the context of exclusionary zoning and argues that River of Life puts control over zoning regulations into the courts and out of the hands of religious institutions.