Oyster Bay agrees to approve Bethpage mosque expansion and pay $3.95M in fees, filings show

The Town of Oyster Bay will approve an expansion plan for the Masjid Al-Baqi mosque in Bethpage and pay $3.95 million to settle a federal lawsuit after denying those plans last year, court filings show.

The town agreed to approve the application from Muslims on Long Island Inc., which owns the mosque on Central Avenue, according to a joint news release filed in the court docket. The town also will pay $3.95 million to MOLI to cover attorneys' fees and other expenses. The town board must approve the settlement within 10 days, filings show.

“This agreement resolves outstanding planning concerns and allows us to move forward in good faith as one community. The Town of Oyster Bay has and always will respect the rights of all faith communities,” Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino said in a statement included with the settlement.

MOLI sought to nearly triple the mosque's size. In December, the town’s planning advisory board denied the group’s application to raze two buildings on the property and build a single one in its place. Religious leaders said they have been trying for more than six years to expand to include a larger prayer room and new wudu stalls.

MOLI sued the town in January, arguing Oyster Bay violated federal religious land use laws. The suit cited a law the town passed in 2022 that changed parking requirement calculations for houses of worship.

As part of the deal, Oyster Bay must within 10 days of board passage "commence with all due speed the processes necessary" to issue all required permits and approvals for the mosque, according to a proposed consent order. The town must appoint an employee to act as a liaison to fast-track the approvals, the settlement said. 

“This is a day of new beginnings," Moeen Qureshi, a volunteer at Masjid Al-Baqi, and one of the plaintiffs, said in the news release. "Our doors will always be open to the community, and we hope our mosque will be a place where people come together in friendship and mutual respect.”

Revert to prior code

The town must strike a law it approved in 2022 that required parking spaces be based on a house of worship’s total occupancy, instead of the square footage or number of seats, as is the case with secular facilities.

That change upped the requirement for mosques from 86 to 155 spaces. The MOLI proposal had called for 88, filings show.

The town must reinstate the prior formula as part of the settlement.

MOLI also agreed to offer helping "congregants cross Central Avenue and Stewart Avenue" during peak prayer times. Both sides said they would explore requesting from Nassau County a crossing guard during those periods.

The owners of the mosque said they would encourage its patrons to use legal parking spaces, including at the Long Island Rail Road parking lot near the mosque. 

Weeks of contention

Oyster Bay’s lawyers had filed an Aug. 14 letter in federal court saying the two sides were nearing a deal.

The case had grown contentious in recent weeks. Last month, attorneys for the mosque said the town had invented a grandmother’s testimony to bolster its denial. The town said the woman is Nassau Legis. Rose Marie Walker (R-Hicksville), a prominent fixture in Oyster Bay and Nassau County politics.

In April, lawyers in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division filed a 17-page "statement of interest" that said the mosque’s owners were likely to succeed on the merits. The statement said that under the town's new parking code, "MOLI is treated less favorably than comparable secular uses such as theaters, libraries, and museums, and the Town cannot and does not show that such unequal treatment is justified."

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ