Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/01/1996

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rag= z ~ ~eptemoer l~o Z,.l~. Religious Use --Is temporary tent for jeWish serviceS a house of worship? Geis£nsky v. Village of Kings Point, 640 N.Y.S. 2d 212 (New York) ~996 Geisinsky put up a temporary tent in the village of Kings Point, N.Y., for Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Aton. ement) services. The village said the tent was a house of worship that violated the zoning code. It notified Geisinsky he needed a special permit to hold services there. The village's letter stated it "hope[d] and expect[ed]" Geisinsky would not violate the code. Geisinsky asked a court to declare that the code did not apply to the tent. He also said the village violated the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (Act). The court granted Geisinsky's request. The village appealed. DECISION: Affirmed, but modified. The lower court properly found the code did not apply to the tent, but should not have found that the vitlage violated the Act. The judgment was modified to state that the village did not violate the Act. The lower court properly decided the code did not apply to the tent. Con- trary to the village's claims, the tent was not a house of worship. It was put up temporarily to protect worshippers on a holy day. Although the code didn't define "house of worship," the term ordinarily referred to a building or place within a building --not just a temporary tent. The code's requirements for houses of worship made no sense for a structure that would be up for a few days. (The code required a house of worship to have front, rear and side set- backs, and buffers with vegetation -- hardly appropriate for a tent.) The lower court was incorrect when it found the village violated the Act. Geisinsky did not show the village substantially burdened his free exercise of religion. The village took no action to stop the services from being held in the tent and didn't try to ban Yom Kippur services completely. Jehovah's Witnesses Assembly Halls of New Jersey v. City of Jersey City, 597 F. Sut)p. 972. Jesus Center v. Farmington Hills Zoning £oard of A~pl~eals, 544 N.W. 2d 698. ~. Expansion of Use-- Owner begins holding live concerts in nonconforming movie theater Conforti v. City of Manchester, 677A.2d 147 (New Hampshire) J996 Conforti owned the Empire Theater in Manchester, N.H. The theater was built as a movie house in 1912. It became a nonconforming use in 1965, when the city adopted a new zoning ordinance that put the theater in a Bol zone. B-1 zones allowed "adult recreation centers" and "recreational facilities," but did not specifically list movie theaters as permitted uses. Conforti leased the building to another theater company, which then sub- leased it to someone else. .. In 1990, the city granted a building permit for interior renovations of the