Lilburn City Council Votes No to Mosque, Crowd Cheers

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. -- Opponents of a new mosque planned for property next to a residential neighborhood of Lilburn cheered Wednesday night when the Lilburn City Council voted down the plans by a vote of 4-0.

The attorney for the mosque said he will likely file a lawsuit in federal court to try to overturn the vote, claiming religious discrimination among other issues.

"I don't think there's any doubt about it," said the attorney, Doug Dillard. "When you look at all the religious institutions that are in existence" along the same section of Lawrenceville Highway where the mosque's property is, where the members of Dar-E-Abbas congregation have been holding services in a small house for 12 years, "and to not allow them to expand so that they can continue to use the property as they have for all these years is discriminatory. And I think it's unlawful."

Homeowners who live in neighborhoods next to the back of the mosque's property, which is currently zoned residential, are afraid the congregation's expansion plans -- which include a 20,000-square-foot mosque, a one-acre cemetery, a gym and a 200-space parking lot on most of eight acres -- would conflict with the city's comprehensive land-use plan and lower their property values.

"It's not discriminatory at all," said one of the homeowners, Ilene Strongin-Garry, after the vote, "this was never a racial issue, it was never religious, it was a rezoning issue. There were some who wanted to portray it as religious. It never was. It was what they were building there. It doesn't matter what it was going to be, it didn't belong in that area. It wasn't zoned for that."

Each of the two sides in this long-running dispute had 30 minutes to present its case to the city council members. But the entire time, Council Member Tim Dunn already had in his hands a motion opposing the mosque, and he read it the moment the one-hour public hearing ended.

The motion Dunn read listed several reasons against the plans. For example, Dunn said that granting the congregation's request would constitute spot zoning; the agricultural zoning required for the cemetery would be regressive since that parcel is now zoned residential; zoning for a cemetery can never be reversed once a cemetery is established; stormwater drainage in the residential neighborhood would be worse because of the parking lot and new buildings where woods are now; and the proposed complex would cause traffic, safety and noise issues.

But Dillard said the council did not offer any proof supporting the objections, and that an independent consultant selected and hired by the city concluded that the mosque's plans should be approved.

"There was no basis" for the motion, Dillard said, "no evidence for that. We had engineers, we had land planners, we had appraisers, all who showed that this property should be rezoned. The city had nothing to refute any of that evidence.... They [the city council] hired an outside consultant, independent, not on their payroll, come in and make a recommendation. He made a recommendation for approval."

Dillard said he will tell the court that the council did not base the vote on the law or on the merits of the arguments, but simply on the hundreds of Lilburn residents who lobbied against the mosque plans.

"There's lot of political pressure put on council to deny this. They made a political decision, and they denied it. We think it's wrong. We think in so doing they take a valuable property right from these property owners" who want to expand the mosque.

"We'll let a judge review whether or not their actions were, in fact, lawful. It is a constitutional issue" and also a violation of federal statutes, Dillard said.

Which means the issue is likely to remain unsettled for several months, at least.