Dalton & Tomich PLC unveiled this week a new website that examines and discusses the continually evolving area of religious land use and zoning within the context of a federal law called, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”). Co-founding partner Dan Dalton of Dalton & Tomich PLC is among the country’s foremost practitioners of and experts on religious land use and zoning law.
The website, www.attorneysforlanduse.com, offers news, perspectives and case studies designed to inform, enlighten and educate. Cities and municipalities often deny religious entities such as churches, mosques, temples and synagogues rights to land use in order to maintain areas for tax generating uses like retail, residential, entertainment or industrial. Such discrimination has become increasingly prominent in recent years — and defense strategies are becoming more and more sophisticated in practice.
“We are seeing defense argue these cases with more intense vigor, nuance and creativity than ever before,” said Dan Dalton, founding member at Dalton & Tomich, PLC. “New defense tactics are necessitating new approaches on behalf of religious organizations seeking to use land for religious assemblies.”
Dalton & Tomich PLC has won landmark RLUIPA cases for clients across the country, including several precedent-setting decisions in California, Mississippi, Illinois, Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania. In 2012, the firm secured a $1.1 million verdict on behalf of the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in San Diego, the largest RLUIPA trial verdict ever in federal court.
Dalton will also soon have “written the book” on religious land use law, as “Litigating Religious Land Use Cases,” the only treatise on this topic, is being published this Fall by the American Bar Association.
