The religious nonprofit Muslims on Long Island, which owns and operates the Masjid Al-Baqi mosque, informed a New York federal court Thursday that it learned via a journalist's reporting that the town of Oyster Bay had backed out of a settlement the parties reached in August.
The town had agreed to pass a resolution approving MOLI's land-use application for a new facility to replace two existing smaller facilities, a move that was supposed to be completed by Friday under the terms of the deal.
But the Oyster Bay Town Board decided to withdraw from the proposed settlement agreement, citing concerns about high accident rates at a nearby intersection and the more than 4,775 red light violations issued annually, according to a statement shared with Law360 Real Estate Authority on Friday.
"This case between the Town of Oyster Bay and MOLI centers on traffic safety and parking — not religion," Oyster Bay attorney Frank Scalera said in a statement. "The Town Board will not compromise when it comes to protecting everyone in the public, nor will they accept development plans that fail to adequately address these serious concerns."
MOLI asked the court Thursday to proceed with the previously scheduled Oct. 27 trial date.
After the deal was announced earlier in August, some residents expressed hostility toward the mosque and its worshippers and threatened elected officials should they approve the deal. Some signers of a petition against the settlement left comments including "Get these mudskins out" and "This town is cooked if this taj mahal goes up," per the public Change.com petition.
"The failure to adopt this resolution is not just linked to, it's caused by the backlash on social media and elsewhere on the internet that is driven by people with very bigoted and racist views towards South Asians, towards Muslims and towards minority groups," MOLI counsel Muhammad Faridi told Law360 on Friday.
"It was just less than two weeks ago that the town leadership and their chairs basically agreed to the settlement and the only thing that has changed since then is the petition on Change.org, are the comments that are coming in on social media and the threats that these people are making to the town officials," Faridi said.
To comply with the settlement, the Town Board was required to pass a resolution approving the mosque's land use application by Friday. The passage would have then triggered a 30-day timeline to pay $3.95 million in attorney fees and costs, and it would have triggered other obligations related to further permitting and the repeal of a parking law MOLI alleged was enacted to thwart its application.
Faridi noted Friday that the mosque has still not heard directly from Oyster Bay officials confirming that the town no longer plans to comply with the settlement.
"We have still not received any communication from the town whatsoever and we find that to be a betrayal of the candor and the rapport that we had developed with them," Faridi said.
MOLI first filed its land use application in 2018, kicking off a six-year process that ultimately ended in a December denial, which pointed to concerns about traffic, parking and neighborhood character.
In the lead-up to the denial, the town amended a key parking ordinance in 2022, drastically increasing the number of parking spots required at the mosque and at other religious institutions, which did not apply to secular institutions such as theaters, MOLI said.
When the change was made in 2022, the mosque found itself unable to accommodate this requirement in plans for its new facility and sought a parking variance from the town's planning advisory board. Under the would-be settlement, the town had agreed to revert parking requirements for religious institutions to pre-2022 standards and to provide exemptions for any provision that substantially burdens religious exercise.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in support of MOLI in April.
MOLI is represented by Muhammad U. Faridi, Diana M. Conner, Julia H. Long, Peter Vogel and Kailyn E. LaPorte of Linklaters LLP.
Oyster Bay is represented by Edward M. Ross and Judah Serfaty of Rosenberg Calica Birney Liebman & Ross LLP and town attorney Frank Scalera.
The case is Muslims on Long Island et al. v. The Town of Oyster Bay et al., case number 2:25-cv-00428, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
--Editing by Haylee Pearl.
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