Description: Challenge by church to town's denial of application for certificate of appropriateness allowing installation of solar panels on the church's meetinghouse.
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First Parish in Bedford, Unitarian Universalist v. Historic District Commission of Town of Bedford
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 12/12/2018 Settlement Agreement Settlement reached and Town's appeal withdrawn. The Town of Bedford announced that its Board of Selectmen had voted to withdraw the appeal of the trial court order granting the Parish's application for a certificate of appropriateness allowing installation of solar panels on the roof of the Parish's meetinghouse. -
First Parish in Bedford, Unitarian Universalist v. Historic District Commission of Town of Bedford
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 08/16/2018 Judgment Judgment entered for plaintiffs. The court ruled that the denial of the certificate of appropriateness was facially deficient, arbitrary, and exceeded the Commission's authority. The court directed that the certificate be granted. The court dismissed claims that denial of the certificate violated the plaintiffs' freedom of religious expression. 12/20/2017 Memorandum of Decision Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment allowed in part and denied in part. The court allowed the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment with respect to the argument that the Commission's denial of its application for a certificate of appropriateness was facially deficient and order the Commission to file a supplemental statement of reasons for denying the application. The court denied the motion for summary judgment with respect to the remainder of the plaintiffs' arguments. With respect to the the plaintiffs' religious expression claim, the court found that the record evidence demonstrated that the denial of the certificated did not cause a substantial burden on the plaintiffs' free exercise of religion "where it neither prevented … congregants from living in accordance with the Seventh Principle of Unitarian Universalism nor coerced them to act contrary to that belief. In other words, even though … congregants are not presently able to mitigate climate change through the placement of solar panels on the Meetinghouse, they can take other available avenues to achieve a similar result. For instance, the congregants could invest in other renewable forms of energy, local to the Meetinghouse or otherwise, or engage in and promote other community conservation or recycling efforts. " 07/31/2017 Memorandum of Law Download Memorandum of law filed in support of plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. 06/27/2016 Complaint Download Complaint filed. The First Parish in Bedford, Unitarian Universalist, along with its senior minister and three members, brought a lawsuit challenging the Town of Bedford Historic District Commission's denial of the Parish's application to install solar panels on the roof of its meetinghouse. The plaintiffs asserted that the denial was "arbitrary, unreasonable, whimsical, capricious, legally untenable, and exceeds of the authority" of the Commission. The plaintiffs also asserted that the denial violated their right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article II of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. In connection with this aspect of their case, the plaintiffs alleged that the Seventh Principle of the Unitarian Universalist faith was "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part," adherence to which the plaintiffs alleged "necessarily has involved confronting and mitigating evolving environmental threats," including climate change.