The City of Bayonne, New Jersey has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed this past summer by Bayonne Muslims, asserting that the city discriminated against the Muslim group after denying variances needed to convert an abandoned warehouse to a mosque (read our previous post about the lawsuit here).  As part of the settlement, the city will pay Bayonne Muslims $120,000 and Bayonne Muslims’ law firm $280,000.  Under the agreement, the city will allow the development of the mosque, subject to a favorable vote by the zoning board.  The proposed mosque is not to be used “for unrelated functions during prayer services,” there will be no on-site kitchen or cooking, and Bayonne Muslims “will add a second or third Friday services as needed if it exceeds capacity and seeks to accommodate additional worshippers.”  The zoning board will hold a hearing to consider the settlement agreement and Bayonne Muslims’ renewed application for variance relief to develop the mosque with 135 prayer mats.

Bayonne Muslims’ President, Abdul Hamid Butt, issued a statement: “We are so grateful for the support of so many of our fellow Bayonne residents through this long struggle and we commend the City of Bayonne for moving now to correct the wrong that was done to Bayonne’s Muslims. We are confident our application, considered on its merits, will be approved and we look forward to welcoming Bayonne residents of all faiths to the City’s first mosque.”

What is not clear is whether the U.S. Department of Justice will continue with its investigation into the city’s processing of the mosque application for possible religious discrimination, given that a settlement has been reached.  More on the DOJ’s investigation is available here.

The settlement agreement in Bayonne Muslims v. City of Bayonne (D. N.J. 2018) is available 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.