2 Long Island mosques tried to expand. Here's how their towns blocked them.

One by one, the c ongregants, in puffer jackets and beanies, entered the tent and slipped off their shoes. Three space heaters did little to warm the 26-degree air as the worshippers stepped onto the frigid mat.

But it was the 14th night of Ramadan, and it was time to pray.

The white tent, set up beside the Hillside Islamic Center in New Hyde Park, is a physical manifestation of the mosque’s yearslong struggle with the Town of North Hempstead, which rejected its expansion plan in 2024. 

During Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, Hillside’s facility becomes so packed some congregants pray in the tent, where the service is streamed from inside the building. 

“It breaks my heart,” Kazi Omar, 20, said outside the tent on an evening in early March. “We actually need the room. It’s pretty upsetting.”

The denial prompted the mosque to file lawsuits in state and federal court. Hillside Islamic Center won the state case, but the town is appealing.

That legal battle follows a contentious dispute between Oyster Bay and a Bethpage mosque, Masjid Al-Baqi, that also sought to expand. The sides settled in October, and the town agreed to a smaller build-out than first proposed. The litigation has cost Oyster Bay, and taxpayers, millions of dollars. 

The conflicts reflect a friction seen across the country between municipalities and houses of worship. On Long Island, for instance, debate has raged in past years in Plainview, over plans for a Sikh temple; in Brookhaven, when a church sought a larger space in Medford; and in Old Westbury, as a rabbi looked to open a Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue. But in large part, it's mosques that have prompted divisive clashes, amid a sharp increase in Islamophobia nationwide.

The tension is driven by codes that lack specificity and allow for boards to weigh broad concerns such as safety and traffic, legal experts told Newsday. The laws have left mosques vulnerable to tactics that over the years have slowed, or outright stopped, expansions.

Newsday analyzed the codes of Long Island’s 13 towns and two cities and found a patchwork of laws regarding construction or expansions. Some governments require houses of worship to gain special permits to expand. Others hold a different set of parking space requirements for secular and nonsecular facilities.

With public officials and boards required to sign off, legal experts said there is too much room for discretion and selective enforcement. 

“This use of municipal law and zoning and traffic regulation — we're seeing that kind of playbook used across the country to oppose the expansion and construction of mosques," said Erum Ikramullah, a senior research project manager with the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a nonprofit that provides research and education about America's Muslim population. "And oftentimes, it's kind of masking anti-Muslim sentiment within those communities."

Between 2010 and 2019, 35% of mosques nationwide faced resistance from their neighborhood or municipality while trying to build or expand, according to the nonprofit, which researched the issue. From 1980 to 2009, the figure was 25%, ISPU found. 

Nationally, political attacks against Muslims are on the rise. Republican members of Congress, and political candidates, have ramped up their Islamophobic rhetoric. In December, members of the House formed the "Sharia Free America Caucus," vowing to stop "radical Islam." The Council on American-Islamic Relations has labeled the caucus an "extremist organization" as well as an "anti-Muslim hate group." CAIR said 2025 was the riskiest for American Muslims to participate in civic activism since the period after Sept. 11, 2001. The council also said it received a record 8,683 complaints of discrimination against Muslims last year.

The law firm that represents the mosques in North Hempstead and Oyster Bay, both Republican-run towns, has accused each of violating a key federal law, the Religious Land Use And Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. RLUIPA requires municipalities to give equal treatment to religious and secular facilities while rendering decisions on zoning and land use.

"They rely upon the general concerns about traffic and traffic safety in order to deny houses of worship," said Muhammad Faridi, an attorney with Linklaters LLP, the Manhattan law firm representing both mosques. "This is what happens when you give local technocrats who are elected and sometimes swayed by local political currents a tremendous amount of discretion."

Town officials have said that in issuing the denials, they were defending their zoning laws and responding to legitimate concerns about public safety and traffic. 

North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena declined a request for comment, but town spokesman Umberto Mignardi said in a statement, "the matter ultimately centers on the quality of life for residents living near the Center, and the Town’s effort to balance those concerns — particularly around traffic, safety, and parking — with the interests at stake." 

Brian Nevin, an Oyster Bay spokesman, said in a statement: "The Oyster Bay Town Code is applied equally to libraries, theatres, museums and houses of worship."

Hillside's struggle

Hillside Islamic Center, a tan brick building with expansive windows, stands in contrast to the rest of Hillside Avenue, a high-trafficked street stuffed with gas stations and grocery stores.

The two-story, 5,428-square-foot-building, which reads "May Peace Be With You" in English and Arabic, was built in 2014 to meet the mosque's growing population. The first iteration was 1,000 square feet, an outgrowth of early years when members prayed in grocery stores, churches and synagogues. 

Now, about 600 to 700 people regularly attend Friday services, up from about 200 to 300 about a decade ago, said Abdul Bhuiyan, chairman of the mosque's board of trustees. The population includes a mix of various ancestries: Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Afghan, Arab (Egyptian) and Guyanese.

When Bhuiyan first moved to New Hyde Park in 2000, he recalled, some of his neighbors were skeptical of him and his customs. His was among the first South Asian families in a majority-white neighborhood, he said. 

But over the past nearly three decades, the area's South Asian population has grown at a fast clip. The number of people living in Nassau County who were born in South Central Asia, which includes Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran, has more than doubled since 2000, according to U.S. Census data. In 2024, Nassau counted 56,838 residents who were born in the region, up from 25,575 in 2000, the data shows.

In 2021, the mosque applied to the town's building department in the hopes of expanding.

Two years later, the planning board concluded the expansion would not have a negative impact on the environment. Any increase in energy and water use, and sewage generation, would be minor, according to that board's recommendation. 

The Town of North Hempstead's planning board originally recommended approving the project.

The town board held a series of hearings, which turned contentious. Some residents blamed congregants for a range of issues — broken car windows, blocked driveways, garbage in the street, kids playing basketball at the mosque late into the night.

The town denied the expansion during a board meeting on Jan. 30, 2024. Before casting her vote, Councilwoman Christine Liu disclosed an earlier conversation with Town Attorney Richard Nicolello.

But later, the North Hempstead Town Board denied the project.

"We were advised that the denial of [the] application would likely constitute discrimination and unequal treatment to a religious institution," Liu said during the meeting, according to a transcript.

Nicolello denied making those comments. The board voted to reject the plan, 4-2. Liu, a Democrat, voted to approve, joining fellow Democrat Robert Troiano. Republican council members Ed Scott, Dennis Walsh and David Adhami voted against it. DeSena, a Democrat who caucuses with Republicans, also voted no. Mariann Dalimonte, a Democrat, abstained.

The plan did not comply with the town code and was also "inconsistent" with its "spirit and intent," a denial resolution stated.

Hillside then sued the town. State Supreme Court Justice Erica Prager ruled in the mosque’s favor in January 2025, calling the town's rejection “arbitrary and capricious.” Prager ordered the town approve the site plan. 

Months later, North Hempstead filed an appeal in state appellate court.

“Religious institutions are not exempt from local zoning and planning laws,” Michael Sahn, North Hempstead’s Uniondale-based attorney, wrote in the town’s 237-page appeal. The appeal is pending.

Then, in early March, the mosque filed a new lawsuit in federal court.

Hamza Khamisa, 29, a member of the mosque’s executive committee, said he has been OK with praying outside, so long as it meant his elders could pray inside. But he has reached a breaking point this year, he said. One day he prayed in the tent as rain poured down.

“Your shoes are wet, your socks are wet,” he said. “I was sick for two days.”

Patchwork of codes

Requirements for construction of houses of worship vary across Long Island. Most align with regulations for secular facilities, such as libraries and community centers. Some are different.

In Brookhaven, places of worship face different requirements for parking: One space for every three people in sanctuary areas. But parking is based on square footage for art galleries, community centers, museums and other facilities. 

Religious facilities usually have areas such as offices and kitchens that are not a lways in use, town spokesman Drew Scott said. The town does not include those areas when considering parking requirements. 

 In some municipalities, such as the Town of Hempstead and the City of Glen Cove, houses of worship are required to secure a special use permit, or its equivalent, in addition to a site plan approval.

In Hempstead, a special exception permit is granted so long as the religious institution does not impose "negative impacts," according to the town code. That can include adverse effects on traffic and property values, as well as an increased emergency risk, the code says. The same standard applies to schools. The special exception permit is approved at the discretion of the town's Board of Appeals.

Brian Devine, a Hempstead spokesman, said in a statement that special permits "exist to strike a fair and appropriate balance between the needs and rights of institutions seeking to establish or expand facilities, and the concerns of residents.”

Glen Cove requires houses of worship to go before the city's planning board for a site plan review and a special use permit.

The religious facility must satisfy certain requirements, including having 2 acres of property and enough off-street parking. The board has discretion to approve or deny the special use permit, said Roni Jenkins, a city spokeswoman.

Affording governments discretion has allowed officials to stymie house of worship expansions, legal experts have said.

Luke Goodrich, vice president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm, said "zoning law is so flexible and so discretionary that it is the easiest thing in the world to hide sometimes even blatantly anti-religious sentiment.”

“You can always say, ‘Oh, there’s too much traffic, oh, we’re worried about noise, why don’t you go over here, over there, it’s too big.’ ”

In North Hempstead, houses of worship must offer one parking space for every four occupants or every four seats. Oyster Bay's law requires religious facilities to provide one parking space for every three people. 

Mosques are not the only houses of worship on Long Island to face pushback from municipal governments. In 2005, Brookhaven Town passed a zoning law that church leaders said hindered their plans. And for about two decades, the Village of Old Westbury has opposed a rabbi's effort to build a Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue on his property. The village agreed to pay $19 million to settle the case and consider the temple's site plan. A federal judge ruled a 2001 village law had imposed overly onerous requirements on houses of worship.

Masjid Al-Baqi

In Bethpage, the group that owned the Masjid-Al Baqi mosque had sought for years to raze two one-story buildings and build a single, larger mosque. The mosque, whose congregants are of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Afghan descent, envisioned a larger space. In 2024, the town’s planning advisory board denied the group’s site plan.

The configuration already posed dangers for pedestrians, the town's denial stated. Worshippers are forced to park on residential streets and main roads, the document said.

The Oyster Bay planning advisory board denied the proposal for the Masjid Al-Baqi mosque in Bethpage.

In 2022, while the mosque's plan was under review, Oyster Bay changed parking requirements for religious facilities. The new policy based house of worship parking off total occupancy rather than square footage or number of seats. In doing so, the town made a contrast between secular and nonsecular facilities.

Last April, the U.S. Justice Department sided with one of the mosque's key arguments. In a statement of interest, the department said t h at town law "violates RLUIPA’s equal terms provision."

It wasn't the first time the town had blocked the mosque's plans.

In August 2010, on the eve of Ramadan, Oyster Bay officials conducted a surprise inspection of Masjid Al-Baqi and shut the facility down, attorneys for the mosque alleged in a court filing. The town did so partially because of a law, approved earlier in the year, that required houses of worship to be built on at least 1 acre of land, court filings show. Masjid Al-Baqi's lot was slightly under 1 acre.

The following year, Muslims of Long Island, the group that owns the mosque, bought the adjacent property. That sale cost $1.2 million, according Nassau County deed records. 

Lawyers for the mosque said the town had bowed to public pressure in the past and is doing so again.

Just before the shutdown, in July 2010, a Bethpage resident sent a mass email calling on neighbors to oppose a proposal to build another mosque in the community, according to court filings. The email referred to Masjid Al-Baqi and speculated it also planned to expand, attorneys for the mosque said.

Then, "Bethpage residents flooded the Town with messages expressing concerns" about both facilities. Some demanded that Oyster Bay inspect Masjid Al-Baqi, the lawsuit alleged.

'A nicer place'

Leaders of Hillside Islamic Center see the Bethpage case as a template for success.

Khamisa, with the mosque's executive committee, leads a group of teen congregants who patrol the surrounding streets during services. Their goal is to make sure cars are not parked illegally. If one is, an announcement is made during the service.

A central tenet of Islam is “taking care of your neighborhood,” Khamisa said.

"We take care of all of our neighbors,” he said during Ramadan prayers, as the imam’s voice spilled outside the facility. “So, it’s like, ‘Why us?’ "

While Hillside’s future remains uncertain, about 20 miles away in Bethpage, congregants of Masjid Al-Baqi say they are hopeful the turmoil stays in the past.

Rain pattered on the awning of the mosque in Bethpage on a late February afternoon. A cold rush of air followed worshippers into the one-story building on the fourth day of Ramadan.

Shoulder to shoulder, about 150 congregants knelt on a large rug and prayed in the cramped space, a former restaurant on Central Avenue. Their shoes piled on shelves near the door.

Other congregants gathered in a white tent on the property, similar to the one at the Hillside Islamic Center.

The legal pressures of the past year did not penetrate to the community, said Tariq Hafeez, of Bethpage, a congregant.

“I knew that one day they were going to understand the importance,” Hafeez, 52, said of the town. The worshippers simply sought “a nicer place where we can go three hours in peace.”

Syed Majid, 90, remembers when the community didn’t have a place to gather and pray. He was part of the group that established the mosque in 1998. Over the years, there has been one constant: Discrimination, both before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said.

The resolve of its members was forged in that period. The latest court conflagration has only served to strengthen it.

“We had to fight,” Majid said.