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9/1/10
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4 comments
City responds to Islamic center lawsuit
A legal dispute between the city of Alpharetta and the Islamic Center of North Fulton is expected to take up to a year tor resolve according to city officials. Early last month, the city of Alpharetta filed its response to a lawsuit from the Islamic Center of North Fulton, which sued the city after council denied approval to expand its facilities on Rucker Road. “The city was not surprised by the lawsuit,” said city attorney Sam Thomas. “The representatives of the Islamic Center made it clear that they would sue the city if their request was not granted.” The center’s 16-count lawsuit claims, “the City has unlawfully imposed and implemented a land use regulation that imposes a substantial burden upon the rights of the Islamic Center and its parishioners to the free exercise of religion by means that are not the least restrictive available to the City to protect its asserted governmental interest.” The document goes onto say the city has “unreasonably” limited religious assemblies and “has discriminated against Plaintiff, on the basis of its religious denomination.” But Thomas said religion played no role in the Council’s decision. “The council did not feel that the expanded scope of the project was suitable at this site for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the fact that the center pledged not to seek expansion of the project at the time the use was originally approved. The city expects to prevail,” he said. The lawsuit, filed against the city June 23, says the city has deprived the center of rights secured by the First, Fifth and 14th Amendments and has violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. The city says in its response that the act is not applicable to this situation and says, because its unified development code “does not discriminate against or treat differently any persons or class of persons,” it does not violate the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Thomas said it is too early to determine the duration of the case, but it will likely be six months to a year or more before it is settled. According to Thomas, if the center were to prevail, the case would likely be referred back to the council to take action not inconsistent with the ruling of the court.
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The city's decision was prudent, thoughtful, and correct. The proposed construction would dominate everything around it, undermine surrounding property values, and exacerbate existing traffic problems -- religious groups are denied permission to expand all the time for these and similar reasons. More significantly, the ICNF congregation committed to never expanding the structure when they bought the house -- that is the key reason the city denied permission to expand. It was reasonable and necessary for the good of the larger community.
At the planning committee meeting the month before the city council voted, a representative of the ICNF declared that he'd dealt with discrimination before, and that there was no hint of this in Alpharetta. Now we are to understand that the city is discriminating for not allowing expansion. This is a contradiction.
At the city council meeting, several members of the ICNF congregation said that they could never have expected the kind of growth they experienced. Then their attorney, Mr. Wheeler, said that "growth must be anticipated." This is also a contradiction.
When the property was bought, the congregation committed to never expanding the property. In spite of this fact being duly noted in the minutes of previous public city and county meetings, congregants from the ICNF told the city council for the first time that they had never agreed to this, and that someone else outside their congregation had made this commitment. This is another contradiction.
I fully expect a religious community to want to grow – it would be a strange congregation that did not desire this – so my presumption is that expansion of the house into a mosque was always part of the ICNF’s plan. I don’t think they do their congregation’s reputation any good when they continually change their story every time they meet a reversal.
This is an inappropriate site for expansion of the mosque. The area is almost entirely private homes. Rucker Road is usually bumper to bumper in the morning and evening. It is very sad if the congregation denies the agreement that they originally agreed to and try forcing the issue. There are so many other areas available in Alpharetta where a mosque could be erected with more room for future expansion. Or are they going to tell us that they have no intention of further expansion?
Both sides are acting stupidly. The ICNF would do much better by picking another site on a four lane road. Same for the mosque in Forsyth County that made news recently. Sometimes I think they are being deliberately provocative by pushing for these zoning requests (NYC is another example).
However, I think the city should approve the request. There are churches on Rucker road that are larger than the proposed mosque expansion. The ICNF has a pretty clear case there under the 14th amendment (equal protection clause).
But at the end of the day, is it worth spending taxpayer money defending this case while we are in a recession?
-Lee @ rootsinalpharetta.com
You appear to have missed the new information presented at the last city council meeting that the Muslim community is never allowed to sell a place that has establishe as a Muslim worship area; once a mosque, always a mosque (this is one of the reasons why Muslims still claim all that territory in Spain they used to rule 500+ years ago). Thus, your suggestion that the Rucker Road congregation is stupid because they don't pull up stakes and look somewhere else shows a serious lack of understanding of the situation.
Regarding the churches already on Rucker Road: none of the churches are right up on the road; instead, they're all back from the road and do not dominate the surrounding houses the way the proposed mosque would. Thus, the relevant considerations are not entirely comparable.
The deciding factor was the congregation's commitment -- made years ago and repeated in a subsequent city counil meeting -- to never expand the property. They entered into that agreement without constraint and fully aware of what they were doing. At the last tonw hall the mayor reminded the congregation of this obligation, and even chided the group for not keeping its word and honoring its commitment.
"Is it worth spending taxpayer money defending this case while we are in a recession?"
It appears that the majority of residents in the area think it is, yes.