The Orthodox Sephardic Congregation Beth Eliyahu applied in 2012 to the Town of North Hempstead Zoning Board of Appeals for variances to construct a religious school for up to 350 students in a vacant commercial building across the street from its other facilities in a residential neighborhood.  According to the Board, the Congregation “sought to expand a nonconforming commercial building for use as an educational facility with insufficient off-street parking, insufficient number of loading zones, parking located off-premises, elimination of a required buffer strip and a playground and building addition within a Parking District – not a permitted use.”  The Congregation’s proposal included three mini-buses dropping off students in the morning and picking up students in the afternoon, using a staggered schedule to minimize any disruption.  The proposed bus drop-off would be 20 feet from an intersection.

Since 2012, the Congregation has faced opposition for its proposed school from a group of villages, residents, and even politicians, raising traffic concerns.  In a December 6, 2012 letter to the Board, Nassau County Legislator Judi Bosworth stated:

I take this relatively unusual step of expressing my views publicly with respect to a pending BZA case, because of the detrimental impact that approval of this application is almost certain to have on the quality of life in the residential neighborhoods near the subject property, especially the immediately adjacent Allenwood community.

Bosworth claimed that the Congregation’s alleged failure to identify “pick-up/drop-off” areas for school buses had the potential to create a traffic “nightmare,” as the adjacent streets are inadequate to handle the numerous buses (Read more here).  The villages and an association of neighborhood residents called the Allenwood Civic Association funded a traffic study at a cost of approximately $15,000 which detailed their concerns.  The Association claims to oppose the proposal “based solely on the safety of the children that would attend the school and the people who live in the neighborhood.

In September 2013, the Board denied the Congregation’s proposal and stated in its decision: “It is unlikely the neighborhood will be able to absorb, without severe disruption, the impacts associated with the introduction of stopped buses and cars.”  It also found that the proposal would impede emergency services from accessing an intersection 20 feet away from the proposed school bus drop-off zone.

Last month, the Congregation’s lawyer said that he plans to sue the Board in December 2013 or January 2014 on behalf of the Congregation for violating RLUIPA in denying the school proposal.  He stated that there was no rational basis for the Board’s denial and the Board “caved to pressure.”  Prior to the Board’s decision, the lawyer bluntly expressed his view of the opposition: “If three minibuses . . . are a traffic problem, I’d like to know what you smoke.”

We will report back once the lawsuit is filed.  For now, you can read more here.

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Photo of Evan Seeman Evan Seeman

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of…

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of an amicus curiae brief at the petition stage before the United States Supreme Court in a RLUIPA case entitled City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Evan serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the APA’s Planning & Law Division. He also serves as the Chair of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, and is the former Co-Chair of its Municipal Law Section. He has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list as a Rising Star in the area of Land Use Law for 2013 and 2014. He received his B.A. in political science and Russian studies (with honors) from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was selected as the President’s Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Evan received his Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he served on the Connecticut Law Review. While in law school, he interned with the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in the environmental department, and served as a judicial intern for the judges of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court. Following law school, Evan clerked for the Honorable F. Herbert Gruendel of the Connecticut Appellate Court.

Photo of Dwight Merriam Dwight Merriam

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of…

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former Director of the American Planning Association (APA), a former chair of APA’s Planning and Law Division, Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Chair of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the Center for American and International Law, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute National Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, a Counselor of Real Estate, a member of the Anglo-American Real Property Institute, and a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

He teaches land use law at the University of Connecticut School of Law and at Vermont Law School and has published over 200 articles and eight books, including Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, The Takings Issue, The Complete Guide to Zoning, and Eminent Domain Use and Abuse: Kelo in Context. He is the senior co-author of the leading casebook on land use law, Planning and Control of Land Development (Eighth Edition). Dwight has written and spoken widely on how to avoid RLUIPA claims and how to successfully defend against them in court. He is currently writing a book on the subject, RLUIPA DEFENSE, for the American Bar Association.

Dwight has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list in the area of Land Use Law since 2006, is one of the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers in Connecticut, and is one of the Top 100 New England Super Lawyers (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.). He received his B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, his Masters of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, where he was the graduation speaker in 2011, and his J.D. from Yale. He is a featured speaker at many land use seminars, and presents monthly audio land use seminars for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Dwight has been cited in the national press from The New York Times to People magazine and has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC and public television.

Dwight also had a career in the Navy, serving for three tours in Vietnam aboard ship, then returning to be the Senior Advisor of the Naval ROTC Unit at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he taught Defense Administration and Military Management as an Assistant Professor in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Defense Administration and Military Management. He left active duty after seven years to attend law school, but continued on for 24 more years as a reserve Surface Warfare Officer with two major commands, including that of the reserve commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He retired as a Captain in 2009 after 31 years of service.