By John Dobberstein, Editor
TULSA — The Islamic Society of Tulsa and Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the organizations will hold a press conference to announce a lawsuit against the City of Broken Arrow over the denial of a rezoning request for a proposed mosque and retail center.
CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and IST will announce the federal lawsuit at IST’s mosque in Tulsa Monday afternoon. The announcement will be livestreamed here.
A spokesperson for the city reached Sunday said there would be no comment on CAIR’s announcement at this time.
If the lawsuit is filed as expected, it comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice announcing last week an investigation of the city’s zoning and land-use regulations due to the city’s denial of IST’s rezoning request for a mosque on 15 acres along 129th East Avenue, just south of the Creek Turnpike.
The Broken Arrow City Council is expected to meet in executive session Monday during its regular meeting to discuss the DOJ investigation, and a motion to hire a law firm to represent the city in the probe is on the City Council’s agenda.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond called on President Trump and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche this week to halt the DOJ’s investigation.
“Land-use decisions such as this belong to state and locally elected officials who are accountable to the people they serve, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington,” Drummond said in a letter to Trump and Blanche. “Oklahoma cities should not be subjected to sweeping federal investigations based on a single zoning decision when the DOJ itself acknowledges it has made no determination that federal law was violated.”
The Broken Arrow City Council voted 4-1 in January to deny IST’s rezoning request over concerns about the site not being suitable for the size of project IST was proposing, which had included a 42,000-square-foot building, parking for 600 vehicles and a retail center.
Among the concerns cited by city officials were Olive Avenue is a two-lane road with no immediate plans for widening, and the property has only one ingress and egress point. An access road from Olive Avenue east to Aspen Avenue, along the turnpike, is indicated in the city’s comprehensive plan and would run through part of the property.
However, the city’s planning staff green-lighted the project and the Broken Arrow Planning Commission voted 3-2 to recommend approval of the rezoning after a 4-hour hearing at City Hall, which put the final decision in the City Council’s hands.
Earlier this week, CAIR welcomed the DOJ probe under the guidelines of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).
Leave a Reply