Arnold City Council to Consider Change in Zoning Code for Churches

On Thursday, Arnold City Council members will consider changing the 1-acre lot requirement for churches within the city boundaries.

Shiloh World Outreach Center at 1556 Jeffco Blvd. asked for a variance to the current requirement because its building remained unused. 

Arnold Community Development Director Mary Holden said research
found the minimum 1-acre requirement contrasted to Missouri Supreme Court rulings on zoning codes related to churches. The court has limited those codes to safety issues.

Holden said the city planning commission on June 14 recommended changing the city’s zoning code to eliminate the minimum lot size for
churches in the R-2 through R-6 residential Zones, mobile home district zones and C-2 and C-3 commercial zone classifications. 

The city council will consider the change at its next regular meeting on Thursday, Holden said.

Bishop Rick Wallace of Shiloh World Outreach Center said the building where the church is located at the intersection of Jeffco Boulevard and Church Road had been sitting vacant for months before he approached the city about holding services there.

“We’re happy about the outcome,” Wallace said. “The City of Arnold has been great in their support. The only reason we were denied
was because of the codes.”

City Attorney Bob Sweeney, in a memo to Holden, said Missouri
law gives power to municipal legislative bodies to enact regulatory zoning ordinances in their municipalities, “for the purposes of promoting health, safety, morals or the general welfare of the community,” including restrictions to the “height, number of stories, and size of buildings and other structures, the percentage of lot that may be occupied, the size of yards, courts and other open spaces, the density of populations, the preservation of features of historical significance and the location and use of buildings, structures and land for trade, industry, residence or for other purposes.”

The City of Arnold has enacted such regulations and restrictions as part of its comprehensive zoning code, Sweeney wrote.

State law, however, “does not give municipalities zoning power over churches,” he wrote. “Any regulatory power a municipality has over
churches is purely for safety regulation. A decision regarding a church that is based on zoning ordinances and not under enumerated safety regulations allowed under a municipality’s police power, is prohibited,” according to the 1959 Missouri Supreme Court ruling in
Congregation Temple Israel v. City of Creve Coeur.

In that case, the Supreme Court held that the phrase “the location and use of buildings, structures and land for trade, industry, residence and other purposes” does not give municipalities power over the use
of property used for religious purposes by religious organizations whose rights to free exercise of religion are protected by constitutional guarantees, Sweeney wrote.

The court reached a similar finding in the Village of Lutheran Church v. City of Ladue in1996, Sweeney wrote.

The rulings are clear, Sweeney wrote, that a municipality shall have no zoning power over churches.

“In short, any restriction to the location of a church must be found in safety regulations of the City of Arnold,” Sweeney wrote. “If there is a reference to a church in the City of Arnold zoning codes, any restriction must be tied to a safety regulation,” he wrote.

Those regulations include “safety of boilers, smokestacks and similar facilities, sanitation, manner and type of construction for fire protection, off-street parking facilities, sewage disposal and other matters related to the public health, safety, and welfare of the municipal residents,” Sweeney wrote.

The “health, safety and welfare” of municipal residents must
be acknowledge and identified in order for a regulation against a church to be enforceable, Sweeney wrote.