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March 30, 2001/Nisan 6, 5761, Vol. 53, No.26
Law gives congregations muscle
STEVE FELDMAN
Jewish Renaissance Media
In a Philadelphia suburb, a Reform congregation has fought for more than a year to create a synagogue on a parcel of land that had been a Roman Catholic novitiate for years.
An Orthodox congregation in Los Angeles has been in court for years over their use of a private a house, even though their neighbors thoroughly approve of the shul.
And in New Rochelle, N.Y., a Modern Orthodox congregation has been stymied in what seemed like a routine move - across the street.
Now, thanks to a six-month-old federal law, the three congregations are beginning to think they might finally prevail in their struggles with zoning and planning boards as well as with neighbors.
Thus far, however, only one religious institution has won its case under the new law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, according to a Web site devoted to the legislation (www.rluipa.org). A U.S. District Court judge ruled in December that a small church could occupy a storefront in Grand Haven, Mich. Church officials had been told by the town that religious meetings and worship were not permitted at that location under city zoning laws, though "private clubs," "fraternal organizations," and other assemblies were allowed in the zone.
Nunnery was okay
Lacking its own building, the Kol Ami congregation in suburban Philadelphia uses rented space for services and for its Hebrew school. Leaders thought they had found a perfect site in Abington Township - an 11-acre wooded parcel, with a chapel and another building for its school and offices. And the order of nuns that owns the site hoped for a purchaser to maintain its religious uses.
But nearby residents said the synagogue would bring excessive noise and traffic and would lower the value of their homes. Township officials, meanwhile, dispute whether the synagogue would constitute a "continued use" of the site under a current exception.
This month, the zoning board ruled against the congregation, saying that its claim under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act was not timely and that the township's zoning ordinance "does not unreasonably limit" religious assemblies or institutions. The congregation, which has already spent $100,000 for lawyers and consultants, is girding for the costs and trouble an appeal.
City of angels
Etz Chaim of Hancock Park, a tiny Orthodox congregation in Los Angeles, has had nothing but grief since it moved into its current site about seven years ago, said its Rabbi Chaim Rubin. Merely a shtiebel, or synagogue in a home, it serves congregants who are elderly and disabled. For most, it is the only place they can walk to.
But houses of worship are forbidden within the Hancock Park residential zone. At the behest of a residents' group, the city of Los Angeles successfully has fought the congregation's bid for a special use permit in local and state courts. The congregation is appealing the matter in federal court.
For a generation, Rubin's parents' home was a shtiebel in the same neighborhood, but the congregation outgrew it. They purchased a home, which he noted, is "at the corner of two secondary highway thoroughfares, traveled by some 84,000 cars daily." A small minyan meets for daily prayer each morning for about a half-hour, and again at sundown for another half-hour, Rubin testified to Congress. On Shabbat, as many as 50 men and women walk to and from the shul. "That is all we do," he said.
Rubin noted that the zoning ordinance primarily hurts Orthodox Jews, because they must live within walking distance, in other words, 'in a residential neighborhood,' from their shul. "Our right to pray in our neighborhood has been, at best, ignored, or probably more accurately, trampled upon."
The rabbi said in a recent interview that he believes the primary reason the residents' group is opposing the shul so strongly is their concern that it will attract more Orthodox Jews to the neighborhood.
The congregation, Rubin said, has spent $50,000 on lobbying and application fees. The expense would be significantly greater were it not for a neighbor who is handling the case pro bono.
"I'm thrilled with" RLUIPA, Rubin said, hoping that when the case comes up in federal court in July it will make Los Angeles "start doing business a little differently than it did before."
A garage for non-drivers
Things are no better for Young Israel of New Rochelle, N.Y., a Modern Orthodox congregation that for the past six years has sought to move to a larger site catty-corner from its current location, according to Michael Turek, financial secretary and chairman of community relations for the 245-family shul.
Overcrowding has gotten so bad, Turek said, that the congregation holds three separate Shabbat morning services to accommodate congregants, and each is standing room only. On the High Holidays, the synagogue has four simultaneous prayer groups, each in a separate room, he said.
To ease neighbors' opposition, the congregation has offered to build an underground parking lot, despite the fact that congregants walk to the shul on Shabbat. It has also offered to reduce the size of a planned social hall and has voluntarily "mandated to use it only for member-family lifecycle events," Turek said.
He said environmental and other studies, as well as attorneys fees and other expenses in the effort to gain a zoning variance, have "cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though we haven't put a shovel in the ground." And that is before the zoning hearing has even begun.
Turek said he hopes the hearing will take place by summer - and that the federal law will bring a happy result.
What the law says
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which President Clinton signed into law in September, was meant to restore some safeguards for religious institutions that were lost when the United States Supreme Court struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1997.
The new law says: "No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution."
It further says: "No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution."
There are exceptions if the government demonstrates there is "a compelling governmental interest," and the zoning law is "the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."
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