DENVER—Boulder County commissioners say a federal ruling against them in a zoning dispute with a church takes an unreasonable definition of what it means to place a “substantial burden” on the practice of religion.
The commissioners made the argument in a filing Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals. A judge in March ruled in favor of the Rocky Mountain Christian Church, which filed a lawsuit accusing the county of violating the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
That law protects churches from discriminatory land-use laws.
The lawsuit came after the county denied the church’s request to add 132,000 square feet to the church’s 106,000-square-foot campus near Niwot, about five miles northeast of Boulder.
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Information from: Daily Times-Call,
