The Summit Church in North Carolina has filed a lawsuit against the Chatham County Board of Commissioners, claiming religious discrimination after its request to rezone nearly 100 acres for a Chapel Hill campus was denied.
The multi-campus church is led by former Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear.
According to the Christian Post, The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina seeks to enforce the church’s “civil rights as enshrined in the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and codified in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.”
According to the lawsuit, the Summit Church acquired the option to purchase six parcels of land totaling 97 acres in Chatham County through an agreement last year.
The church met with the Chatham County Appearance Commission on April 24, 2024, and held a community meeting on April 29, 2024, where attendees “were excited to see a project proposed that will benefit the community and limit environmental impacts [and] density.”
About a month later, the church submitted its rezoning application, which sought to rezone three of the parcels, approximately 50 acres of land on the eastern side of the highway, to Conditional District-Office & Institutional. The church also submitted a separate application to restore the remaining three parcels to their pre-2022 zoning, R-1.
Despite the initial support for the church’s rezoning application at a public hearing on August 19, 2024, then-Vice Chair Karen Howard of the Board of Commissioners described Summit Church as “a poor fit for what we are envisioning” and “antithetical to real rural character preservation.” Commissioners also expressed concerns about the potential loss of tax revenue if the church were to become the new owners of the land.
While Planning Board member Tony Mayer noted that there weren’t any clear reasons to object to the church’s rezoning application, the lawsuit alleges that Board Vice Chair Mary Roodkowsky argued that Summit Church “is not like the other churches we have in the County” and was “better suited in a more urban environment.”
The Planning Board ultimately did not vote on a recommendation for the church’s application during that September meeting, opting instead to continue the matter to October 2024.
The County Commissioners, however, voted unanimously to reject Summit Church’s rezoning application, despite the church’s request being “consistent with Plan Chatham and the Future Use Map, and despite the Appearance Commission’s recognition of Summit Church’s extraordinary efforts to protect the rural character of the area,” as stated in the lawsuit.
The Summit Church’s lawsuit requests the court to grant injunctive relief to approve its rezoning request and site plan. It also seeks a Declaratory Judgment that the County’s denial violates RLUIPA, along with an award for costs, attorney’s fees, damages, and any further relief deemed appropriate.
