Press

Press Release

March 25, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

All Peoples Church Files Suit Against City of San Diego for Discriminatory Decision to Deny Church Project in Del Cerro

All Peoples Church announced today that it had filed a lawsuit challenging the San Diego City Council’s decision to deny it’s project earlier this year.  All Peoples Church is a vibrant, multi-ethnic and multi-generational Church located in the heart of San Diego. The Church is called to be a people devoted to Jesus who live with the purpose of transforming lives to bless San Diego and planting Churches to transform nations.

In 2017, the Church had purchased a piece of property located at 5555 College Avenue, just north of the I-8 Freeway.  The Church immediately commenced efforts to entitle the property for the construction of a new, permanent campus for its congregation.

Following years of processing, environmental review, and public engagement, the Church’s Light Project, as the proposed Church facility is called, received City staff’s recommendation for approval as well as a unanimous recommendation for approval by the City’s Planning Commission late last year.  In fact, the Planning Commissioners lauded the design plan, mitigation and location of the proposed Church.

Unfortunately, some neighbors opposed the Church and coordinated an intimidation campaign against its approval.  This campaign included hyperbole, misrepresentation, deliberately incorrect facts and numerous instances of public, maligning attacks against the project, the Church and what the Church believes.  Their efforts also included defamatory attacks on individual members of Church leadership and the Church’s consulting team.

Despite the hope that the City Council would look past this hateful, anti-Church rhetoric, they decided to inappropriately discriminate against the Church project and deny its approval.  All of this despite the facts that the environmental review and resulting plan more than addressed all concerns.  

“The law is clear, the City cannot discriminate against a religious use using different rules and analysis from a non religious project in a similar situation,” said Dan Dalton, the lead lawyer for the Church in this lawsuit.  “Federal law protects Churches from the abuse of government in creating different standards for a religious facility, which is what the Council did in justifying its motion to deny the All Peoples Church Light Project,” he continued.

“We believe now, more than ever, in the vision and need for our permanent home at this site,” said Pastor Robert Herber from All Peoples Church.  “The personal attacks and accusations used to foment opposition were unfortunate, but as Christians we forgive and bless those who come against us.  Nevertheless, the Council’s decision to side with the opposition was wrong, which is why we’ve decided to protect our rights by seeking legal redress,” he continued.

The lawsuit was filed in the US Federal Court and will challenge the denial on the grounds that it violates the federal protections afforded to religious institutions.  The lawsuit states that the City inappropriately denied the Church’s Light Project in violation of federal law, the US Constitution and state law.  Specifically, the land use-related provisions of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) prohibit state and local governments from regulating land use in a manner that discriminates against or among religious institutions.

Dan Dalton, the lead attorney, with the firm “Dalton & Tomich, PLC” has previously successfully sued the City, including the recent decision to overturn the denial to expand the Our Lady of Peace Academy in the Mission Hills community on the same discriminatory grounds.

“The City has a long history of discrimination against religious institutions,” said Dalton.  “They’ve made it nearly impossible to site them, and when the land use laws of the City allows, they change the rules to deny access.  That is wrong, federal law doesn’t allow it, and we believe the Court will ultimately find their decision inappropriate and overturn,” he continued.