A local citizens’ group announced they are filing a lawsuit against the Town of Haverstraw town board for overriding the planning board’s denial last summer to convert a Riverglen Drive single-family house into a synagogue. The Orthodox Jewish congregation filed a lawsuit against the town, and last month the town and the planning board approved a settlement of that suit. Gordon Wren heads up the Rockland group Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods, also known as CUPON, and Micheal Miller heads up the Hillcrest group, and both said on Saturday’s “Tough Times with Lou Young” show here on WRCR that they’ve got a new lawsuit now in the works…
At issue is a federal law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, or RLUIPA. It’s designed to protect individuals, houses of worship, and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning laws. Haverstraw supervisor Howard Phillips told WRCR previously that the town’s attorneys said that to fight the lawsuits would be a losing battle, and so last month, they decided to settle…
A separate lawsuit by neighbors of the proposed synagogue challenging RLUIPA is still working its way through the courts.