North Hempstead moves to approve Hillside Islamic Center expansion, in reversal

The Town of North Hempstead is moving toward approving a New Hyde Park mosque’s proposed expansion, reversing course after years of fighting the plan.

The board will consider a conditional approval of Hillside Islamic Center’s site plan, which it denied in 2024, during Wednesday’s board meeting, according to the meeting agenda. The resolution was added Monday afternoon.

The mosque had filed state and federal lawsuits against the town.

Earlier Monday, Newsday reported on how municipalities across the country and Long Island, including North Hempstead and Oyster Bay towns, leverage codes to block mosques from expanding.

A resolution on Wednesday's agenda calls for "conditional approval of a previously denied application" that grants the center "amended site plan approval."

Town spokesman Umberto Mignardi said in a statement: “The parties are continuing to work toward a consent order, and while nothing has been finalized, there is agreement on the process for approving a revised site plan with conditions which will be submitted to the Board. We are optimistic that Wednesday’s vote will allow the process to move forward.”

Linklaters LLP, the law firm representing Hillside Islamic Center, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Abdul Bhuiyan, chairman of Hillside Islamic Center's board of trustees, said Monday: “I hope that the town does not delay our application, and approves it, because this is our right and I think this is only fair to our congregants. I hope this a lesson for all of us."

Hillside Islamic Center, which operates out of a 5,428-square foot building on Hillside Avenue, hosts about 600 to 700 congregants for Friday prayers, officials have said. During Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, many congregants pray inside a tent because of overflow.

In 2021, the mosque applied for an expansion with the town's building department, and two years later, North Hempstead's planning board recommended approval of the mosque's site plan application.

But after a series of public hearings, the board voted to reject the mosque's application.

The mosque then sued the town in state Supreme Court. In January 2025, Justice Erica Prager ruled in favor of the mosque and ordered North Hempstead to approve the site plan. The town filed an appeal, which is pending.

Last month, the mosque sued the town in federal court.

“The Town simply does not want to see an expanded mosque built in New Hyde Park,” Muhammad Faridi, an attorney with Linklaters LLP, wrote in the lawsuit. Faridi and Linklaters also represented Masjid Al-Baqi in a federal lawsuit against Oyster Bay Town, which had blocked its expansion plan. Last fall, the town and the Bethpage mosque agreed to a settlement with a scaled-down build.

North Hempstead Town on Wednesday also will consider a resolution retroactively approving the firm Moritt Hock & Hamroff as special counsel for the federal case. The firm represented Oyster Bay Town in its case and billed $1.3 million for the work, Newsday previously reported.

Mignardi said the sides were "negotiating the terms with the Hillside Islamic Center for weeks, and there has been agreement on enough of the terms that we can give it to the board to vote on. We didn't want this to wait any longer, so we added it today to make sure they could vote this month on it."

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.