BOULDER — The Boulder County Board of Commissioners voted Thursday morning to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on its longstanding battle with a Niwot church.
The conflict between the Rocky Mountain Christian Church and the county is centered on a 2006 request from the church to nearly doubles its 128,000-square-foot campus. The commissioners denied the request, arguing that the expansion would be incompatible with the area’s rural character.
In response, Rocky Mountain Christian Church sued the county, claiming the county had violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the U.S. Constitution.
In 2008 — after a two-week trial in U.S. District Court — a jury delivered a confusing verdict, finding both that the county had treated the church on “less than equal terms,” violating RLUIPA, and that the county did not discriminate against the church based on religion, and therefore did not violate the Constitution.
In 2009, using the jury verdict as a guide, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled that the church could expand the full amount that it originally requested when it filed a land-use application in 2006, which would bring the campus to 240,000 square feet.
The commissioners appealed Blackburn’s ruling, but earlier this year, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled again in favor of Rocky Mountain Christian Church.
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