DENVER (AP) — An evangelical church in Boulder County is asking a federal judge to order county commissioners not to interfere with its planned expansion.
Rocky Mountain Christian Church's injunction request comes after church officials took the Boulder County commissioners to trial. The motion also asks that commissioners approve the church's proposed expansion within 30 days.
Jurors found that commissioners violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act by denying the church's application for a $30 million project that would double its size near Niwot, about five miles northeast of Boulder.
The jury's verdict still leaves it up to U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn to decide whether the church's proposed expansion can proceed. No date is set for the judge's ruling.
The church claimed commissioners violated the law because the denial of the permit placed a burden on their right to practice religion.
Commissioners denied the expansion permit in 2006, saying it would be an over-intensive use of the property and was not in harmony with surrounding areas. They also said the expansion would encroach into a decades-old agricultural buffer zone meant to separate urban and rural areas.
Attorneys for the church said those reasons did not meet the criteria for compelling government interests set by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
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