Land-Use And Zoning Ordinances As A Weapon Of Bigotry?

http://www.washingtonpost.com

Culpeper, Virginia
mapio.net

Hello Everyone:

President Donald J. Trump's administration has gotten off to a chaotic start.  The executive order banning entry to the United States from several Muslim nations has touched off widespread condemnation and protest.  The underlying emotion is fear, specifically, Islamophobia.  However, ill-conceived unvetted executive orders are not the only tool being wielded against Muslims.  Planning and zoning ordinances have become the everyday weapons against adherents of the Islamic faith.

Samer Shalaby
fredericksburg.com

This is the current situation in Virginia.  Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak reports in her article, "A smokescreen for bigotry: Disguising anti-Muslim bias with land-use objections," that local ordinances regarding sewage lines, traffic patterns, and zoning have become the latest mechanism of religious bigotry.  Ms. Dvorak focuses her article on three Virginia cities where these rather banal municipal laws "have been used to smokescreen surging Islamophobia."  This is a new experience for the people who live in the highlighted communities.

Same Shelby, a civil engineer, told Ms. Dvorak,

I would never believe in my life that something like this would happen.

The something Mr. Shalaby is referring was the anti-Muslim epithets tossed about during one of his community presentations.  The shouting match at the November 2015 meeting went viral.  A man, who identified himself as a former Marine, yelled at Mr. Shalaby,

Nobody, nobody, nobody wants your evil cult in this country.

Islamic Center of Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg, Virginia
time.com

Allow yours truly to explain the situation.  The Islamic Center of Fredericksburg, Virginia has existed in Spotslyvania County for 28 years.  The Shalaby family has lived in the county for 31 years.  Until last year, they were considered neighbors, going about their day like anyone else.  Then Donald Trump tossed his hat into the presidential ring, pledging to prevent Muslims from entering the United States and floated the idea of a Muslim American registry.

Amid all the vitriol, expansion plans for the Islamic Center in Fredericksburg were announce-immediately colliding with a wall of opposition.  One year late, the Islamic Center is still enmeshed traffic-patterns objections and subdivision disputes.

Culpepper County Islamic Center
Culpepper, Virginia
slate.com

Forty miles, in Culpepper, local officials routinely approve pump-and-haul permits to handle swag for businesses and places of worship.  Since 1992, Culpepper County approved 26 of these permits, nine of which have been for churches.

Petula Dvorak writes, "But when the Islamic Center of Culpepper bought a parcel of land and proposed a small mosque, a local Republican activist whipped the community in a frenzy over the sewage permit, which become a sneaky way to block the entire project.  Said activist wrote,

I understand the Islamic Center of Culpeper wishes to rehabilitate the existing and use it on a weekly on a weekly basis as a place of prayer.....Hmmmmmmm...

Immediately, as in Fredericksburg, there was a boisterous community meeting with a n unusually high attendance, with all the grandstanding and round of applause when the board broke a quarter century streak of issuing permits and denied that one.

This decision was so heavy handed that the Department of Justice sued Culpeper County in December 2016 for violating the Religious Land Use Act.  In this case, the DOJ has plenty of evidence from emails sent out before the meeting to correspondence board members received from people opposed to the mosque.  The emails mentioned terrorists, not sewage.  Then we have the case of Nokesville.

ADAMS rendering of Nokesville mosque
Nokesville, Virginia
inside nova.com

In Northern Virginia, about 200 Muslims hold their services in a rented hotel space in Manassas.  They want to build their own space that would be known as the Nokeville branch of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, one of the largest and best known mosques in the country.  ADAMS has eleven branches in Northern Virginia and Washington D.C.

Supporters of the mosques have been cooperating with county officials for the past two years on the building's height, lighting, and parking on the site.  However, that cooperation is not enough for opponents of the project.

Cries of No more suburban sprawl have resounded allover the community.  Opponents have also been pressuring civic leaders to deny the mosque the necessary sewage connection.  Two churches recently received approval for the very same connection.  Understand the problem?

Rizwan Jaka, the chairperson of the ADAMS board told Washington Post reporter Tara Bahrampour that the sewage issue "is a red herring and something he's seeing across the country."  Mr. Jaka said,

With over 30 mosques being prevented from being built based off anti-milim bigotry or implicit bias wrapped in land-use arguments that gives us some concern.

Petula Dvorak offers her opinion, "The case in Fredericksburg really shows the ridiculous hoop-jumping Muslims are facing."

Case in point, when the leaders of the Islamic Center purchased a parcel of land just outside of town, the believed they were doing everyone a favor by funneling traffic away from town.  Not so.  The resident not only had an issue with the traffic but they also complained that the area was inappropriate for a religious building.  Same Shalaby said,

We're still fighting the battle, and still trying to be good Samaritans and good neighbors to everyone.

Mosque officials offered to divide the ten acre parcel into single-family home sites and sell that, using the proceeds to buy less than an acres of land, near their current site in Fredericksburg.  That should shunt traffic away from town, right?

Mr. Shalaby added, We gave them an option.

They mailed letters to the residents, explained the plans, and solicited input.  The problem, still?  Traffic.  He continued,

We thought this would be a way to get past the unfortunate bigotry...But a lot of use are having problems like this now.  It's amazing.  I never thought it would happen in this country.