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BROOKFIELD — The town is the subject of a federal inquiry into whether its local zoning regulations treat religious organizations on “less than equal terms” than non-religious groups.
That inquiry and a separate but related lawsuit filed in Danbury Superior Court in March both stem from the Brookfield Zoning Commission’s decision in February to deny White Star Properties, LLC’s request to amend the town’s zoning regulations for its C-1 Regional Commercial District to allow religious uses of properties by special permit within that zone. The town’s current regulations do not allow religious uses on lots located in the C-1 Zone.
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White Star’s filings don’t name the religious group that used the property. That group is named in the separate joint notification of the federal inquiry from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut. The notification identifies the religious group as K-Church, a congregation that serves the area’s Brazilian community.
The letter does not state what prompted the investigation but says the probe is "preliminary" and that authorities haven't determined whether the town has violated federal law.
A Department of Justice spokesman declined comment when asked what actions triggered the inquiry and whether the federal agencies received a direct complaint alleging religious discrimination.
White Star’s attorney Ward J. Mazzucco, when reached by phone, declined to comment on the pending litigation, instead referring a reporter to the existing legal documents.
Attempts last week to reach Brookfield Land Use Director Laura Barkowski and Zoning Commission Chairman Gary Goetz for comment were not successful.
First Selectwoman Tara Carr, in an email to a reporter, wrote that town officials “are fully cooperating with and are in the process of complying with the DOJ investigation request for documentation and our Town counsel and staff intend to meet the September 1st deadline.”
The Brookfield Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the Zoning Commission amend the C-1 Zone regulations to allow houses of worship by special permit, according to written minutes from the Brookfield Planning Commission’s Dec. 1, 2022 meeting. The Zoning Commission took up the matter over three nights of public hearings from January 2023 to February 2023. Following the third public hearing, on Feb. 9, the commission voted 4-1 to deny the zoning amendment request, with little discussion.
'Unequal treatment'
The plaintiff in a July 27 legal brief stated that individual Brookfield Zoning Commission members acknowledged an oversight in how the town’s C-1 Zone regulations are structured, in that they do not comply with the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
The statute, often referred to as RLUIPA, prohibits a land use regulation that “imposes a substantial burden on religious exercise absent a compelling justification pursued in the least restrictive means” and that “treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.”
Mazzucco, White Star's attorney, cited commission members’ individually stated concerns about the C-1 Zone regulation’s lack of compliance with RLUIPA. One member described the regulations as a mistake that “might be considered small… it has large implications,” according to the legal brief.
Mazzucco, in the July 27 brief, urged the court to consider how the town’s regulations treat assembly halls for comparison. Those, the attorney noted, are allowed to operate by special permit approval. Same for conference centers, the brief stated.
“However, unlike ‘Assembly halls’ and ‘Conference centers,’ ‘Places of worship/parish houses and centers’ are not allowed to even apply for a special permit to operate within the C-1 Zone. This type of unequal treatment as between nonreligious assemblies and institutions and religious assemblies and institutions in the Brookfield Zoning Regulations is exactly the type of unequal treatment that the Act prohibits,” Mazzucco wrote.
Video footage from the Zoning Commission meetings show another attorney, Charles O. Lichtenauer, who spoke on behalf of White Star, made repeated references to the RLUIPA statute.
During the commission’s Jan. 26 meeting, Lichtenauer specifically referenced a similar case involving the city of Meriden, which in 2020, reached at settlement Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney to revise its own zoning regulations after denying a mosque’s request to establish a presence in that city.
Lichtenauer told the commission that Meriden, through the consent order, was required to enact zoning regulations treating religious assemblies on equal terms with non-religious assemblies. Meriden officials also agreed to pay $950,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the mosque's leaders against the city, according to Record-Journal news reports.
“The Brookfield zoning regulations are not in compliance with the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, because non-religious assemblies are permitted with a special permit approval in a C-1 zone, and religious institutions are completely disallowed in the C-1 zone. Religious institutions are not even able to appear before you at a special permit hearing to ask to be located at a specific site in the C-1 zone,” Lichtenauer told the commission.
He later added that the amendment his client proposed would protect the town against RLUIPA-related litigation.
Instead, that litigation and other action is now ongoing.
In July, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and DOJ notified Brookfield town leaders of the agencies’ probe into the town’s zoning and land use practices, as well as the Planning and Zoning Commission, for a possible RLUIPA statute violation.
“Our investigation will focus on how the Township’s zoning code treats religious land uses. We will review in particular how Brookfield’s zoning regulations treat religious assembly uses compared to secular assembly uses, and the Zoning Commission’s and Planning Commission’s response to efforts by the K-Church and White Star Properties to obtain permission to host religious assembly and other activities on a property currently located within the Town’s ‘C-1’ district. Our investigation is preliminary in nature; we have not made any determination as to whether there has been a violation of RLUIPA by the Town,” the notice stated.
The notice requested town leaders provide information and copies of documents, including a current copy of Brookfield’s zoning regulations and maps; all documents that described the processes for establishing a religious assembly in Brookfield, including obtaining special exception permits; copies for all applications submitted to the town by religious groups seeking to locate or use a structure in the town’s C-1 district, as well as copies of applications submitted by non-religious groups during, submitted since Jan. 1, 2014.
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