Muslim school in Bay Shore at former Monfort Missionaries site can't board students, Islip Town says

A Muslim organization cannot board students at the site of a former Catholic boarding school in Bay Shore that it bought for $5 million, Islip Town officials said Wednesday.

The Islip Zoning Board of Appeals voted 3-1 late Tuesday night that a boarding component at the property on Saxon Avenue is not permitted.

The New Jersey-based United American Muslim Association bought the 13-acre property in June from the Montfort Missionaries, who ran it until 1972 as a boarding school for high school boys considering the priesthood. In recent years it was a Montfort retreat house and headquarters. The United American Muslim Association said it planned a boarding school for boys in grades 7 through 12.

The appeals board reversed "the Building Division’s interpretation and determined that the proposed boarding component at 26 South Saxon Avenue is not a permitted accessory use to the parochial school under the Town’s zoning code," Islip Town spokesperson Caroline Smith said in a statement.

The board’s full reasoning will be released within five days in a written decision, Smith said. The Muslim group can run a day school at the site, she added.

The group’s proposal generated an overflow crowd of 600 people who attended an Islip Zoning Board of Appeals meeting in late July. Opponents cited concerns such as increased traffic and disruptions to what one resident called "the character of the neighborhood."

But a local Muslim leader said Wednesday he believed the board's decision was part of a pattern of anti-Islamic sentiment on Long Island.

"It is mind-boggling to see. It’s very disturbing to us," said Habeeb Ahmed, a leader of the Islamic Center of Long Island, a major mosque in Westbury. Officials are "treating different communities with different standards."

He noted mosques in Bethpage and New Hyde Park recently faced opposition from local governments over proposed expansions, but ultimately won their fights. In one case that went to federal court, the Town of Oyster Bay had to pay $5 million in legal fees to the mosque in Bethpage.

The Town of Islip did not immediately respond to Ahmed's comments.

Steven Bertolino, an attorney representing residents, told Newsday on Wednesday "I’m very pleased that the board saw our position was the correct one."

The United American Muslim Association, which has ties to the Suleymaniye Mosque in Dix Hills, did not respond to a request for comment. The attorney who represented them at the zoning board meeting, Samuel L. Bifulco, said he had no comment.

At the hearing in July, Bifulco told officials the school would house a maximum of 120 students and 20 staff members, including teachers. Another 10 teachers would commute, he said.

Zoning laws permit a church, mosque or synagogue at the site that can accommodate 1,300 people at a time, Bifulco said. The school would involve far fewer people, he said, calling it the most "responsible" use of the property.

No weddings or catered events would take place at the facility, he said.

The Montforts previously had an offer from Sunrise Senior Living to buy the property and open an assisted living facility there, according to the Rev. Thomas Poth, provincial of the Montforts in the United States.

But residents opposed the plan and the Islip Town Board rejected Sunrise’s application for a zoning change when the board failed to reach a 4-1 supermajority vote. That battle went on for eight years, Poth said.

The Montforts founded the facility in 1926, but it closed as a boarding school and minor seminary in 1972 due to declining enrollment.