California landmark laws exempt faith groups, court rules

By The Associated Press

12.22.00

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SAN FRANCISCO — Religious organizations are exempt from landmark preservation laws and can raze and replace historic church buildings, the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The court, voting 4-3, upheld the constitutionality of a 1994 state law, which, it said, neither endorsed religion nor provided improper state assistance.

The law stops cities and counties from enforcing preservation laws against property owned by religious organizations, allowing them to alter or demolish historic buildings if necessary for religious or financial purposes.

By exempting the religious organizations, the state "simply stepped out of the way of the religious property owner," Justice Marvin Baxter wrote in a majority opinion.

Justice Stanley Mosk dissented, saying the Legislature was meddling in religious affairs and granting religious groups greater power than the general public enjoys.

Attorneys for the city, which challenged the law, did not return telephone calls yesterday in time for this report.

The 1994 law was sponsored by current mayor Willie Brown — who was California's Assembly speaker at the time — to aid Archbishop John Quinn, who was in the process of closing nine damaged Catholic churches whose congregations were shrinking.

Some parishioners threatened to sue under landmark-preservation laws, and a judge ruled in 1996 that the law favored religious organizations and was unconstitutional.

But an appeals court overruled him last year. It said that, under the state constitution, religious organizations should be free to decide which of their buildings to preserve.

The city and preservation groups said in court papers that the appellate decision "gives the Legislature a green light to exempt religious organizations, for purely economic reasons, from all kinds of legislation."