The St. Paul City Council on Wednesday agreed to a proposed legal settlement with the First Lutheran Church in Dayton’s Bluff, all but ending a legal saga over the church’s major tenant — the Listening House daytime center for the homeless.
Just as notably, the settlement agreement requires the city to reconsider how it approaches religious institutions that ask for zoning relief to install homeless shelters and other uses that might otherwise be restricted by city ordinances. The agreement requires the city to study possible new zoning allowances specific to religious organizations.
“Today’s settlement agreement protects our rights as a church to live out our religious mission,” said the Rev. Chris Olson Bingea of First Lutheran, in a written statement. “We hope and expect that as a result of this settlement, other churches in the city of St. Paul will have an easier time securing their rights in the future.”
‘LIVING ROOM OF THE HOMELESS’
The Listening House — which bills itself as the “Living Room of the Homeless” — sued the city in Ramsey County District Court in April 2018 after the city council imposed 14 restrictions on its operations, which have been based in the basement of the First Lutheran Church on Maria Avenue since June 2017.
Their arrival was met with strong resistance from many neighbors, who said they sometimes found homeless visitors staring into windows, sleeping on porches or even defecating in public places.
Among the restrictions or requirements related to hours, staffing and capacity, the city council in December 2017 limited the number of homeless visitors to 20 per day and ordered the church to install a “No Trespassing” sign, which it refused to do. Listening House officials said at the time they serve as many as five times that many visitors, or 35 to 100 homeless and low-income clients per day.
That same month, First Lutheran filed its own lawsuit against the city in U.S. District Court, citing an infringement on the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which prohibits municipalities from using land-use regulations to unduly interfere with the rights of churches.
By July 2018, however, it became clear that the city was on shaky legal ground. A federal judge that month issued a preliminary injunction, blocking enforcement of the “no trespassing” sign and the 20-person limit based on the federal religious land use act.
CITY RELENTS
The city council later agreed to ease several restrictions and approved a legal settlement with Listening House last December. The new capacity is 112 visitors at any one time, rather than per day. Staff must be on-site at least a half-hour before opening and after closing, rather than two hours before and after.
On Wednesday, the council unanimously voted to approve a separate settlement with First Lutheran, which comes with its own terms. Among them, the city has six months to add language to its zoning application forms that states, “If you are a religious institution you may have certain rights under
RLUIPA. Please check this box if you identify as a religious institution.”
In addition, the city will pursue a zoning study to propose amendments to the city’s zoning ordinances to “establish a better process for land-use
applications for religious organizations.” The study must be completed within three years. The city also agreed to host training for its planning staff in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act within six months, and to keep the city attorneys abreast of the law.
“After the settlement, we will continue to do as we have always done for over 150 years,” said Bingea, the First Lutheran pastor, in the written statement. “We will continue to work hard to make our little corner of the world near Swede Hollow Park a more welcoming and safe place for all our neighbors.”
