D. Mass.: Challenge to solar farm dismissed for failure to show sacred Indian mounds existed on site. The decision concluded that RLUIPA doesn’t create a right to carry out religious activities on property owned or controlled by another.
The Springfield Republican reports here. It states,
The lawsuit asserted that the Shutesbury Planning Board conspired with a solar developer and forest landowner to deprive Native Americans and “Syncretic Spiritualists” of their religious rights.
The decision, which can be read in full here, states,
[The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act] does not create a substantive right for a person to carry out religious activities on property owned or controlled by another. Indeed, any law
attempting to grant a state or local government power to grant individuals rights in another person’s
property so that they can better practice their religion would clearly fall afoul of the Establishment
Clause, which is intended to ensure government actors exercise neutrality “between religion and
nonreligion, as well as among religions.” Marrero–Méndez v. Calixto–Rodríguez, 830 F.3d 38, 44 (1st
Cir. 2016)