Town of Brighton

LAND EXPERTS NATIONWIDE WATCHING RESOLUTION TO FAITH TEMPLE DISPUTE:

About two times a week, Maria Cosmiano takes her children to Buckland Park on Westfall Road to use the playground equipment.

But, like many residents, she doesn't know that legal experts around the nation are watching what is happening with that park and the land surrounding it in a case that could change the way governments across the country buy land to build streets and parks for the public.

Brighton officials want to expand the roughly 50-acre Buckland Park and are trying to use eminent domain powers to force Faith Temple Church to sell the nearly 70 neighboring acres of undeveloped property to the town at fair market value.

In turn, the church is suing the town in an effort to keep its land, which it plans to develop into a complex of a new church, a school, soccer fields and a baseball diamond, arguing its right to religious freedom trumps eminent domain. The project's first phase — an all-purpose facility for worship and classroom space — will cost the congregation $12 million to $15 million. Total cost of the project is unknown.

The case, which could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court depending on the ruling from a lower federal court, seeks an answer to the question: Should places of worship get special treatment when governments use eminent domain to buy land for public use?