SCRANTON — A compromise appears likely less than 24 hours after the U.S. Department of Justice initiated a civil lawsuit against Kingston alleging the municipality’s 2023 zoning ordinance places unjust restrictions on religious worship and religious schools.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Scranton on Wednesday, alleges Kingston’s adopted 2023 ordinance violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a law passed in 2000 to protect individuals, houses of worship and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and land marking laws.
Within a day of the filing, U.S. Attorney Brian D. Miller and the Justice Department on Thursday announced an agreement has been reached with Kingston pending approval by a U.S. District Court judge.
According to the suit, Kingston adopted its 2023 ordinance that changed and restricted where and how places of worship and religious schools could be developed. Under the 2023 ordinance, places of worship and religious institutions require a minimum land area of one acre and places strict parking requirements for places of worship than on certain nonreligious places of assembly.
Data produced by Kingston suggests there are only 49 parcels of one acre or more in the municipality resulting in “only a small fraction of parcels even meet the zoning district and acreage requirements necessary to develop a place of worship,” the suit alleges.
The suit stems from a rapidly growing population of the Chabad Orthodox Jewish community, which needs to establish new religious facilities such as synagogues and mikvahs (ritual baths) within walking distance of their homes as Jewish religious law prohibits the use of automobiles on the Sabbath and all major Jewish holidays. Members of the Chabad community must walk to their place of worship on the Sabbath and holy days and requires places of worship within walking distance of their homes, the suit says.
As there are several, smaller synagogues that have been renovated in recent years in Kingston, and due to the growing population of the Orthodox Jewish community in the municipality, the suit alleges, Kingston’s 2023 ordinance places unfair restrictions for locations to construct larger places of worship.
The proposed consent order, or agreement, filed Thursday would resolve the lawsuit as Kingston pledged to revise its zoning ordinance to allow places of worship and religious schools as a permitted use in commercial districts and as a special use in residential districts, eliminate the acreage requirements for places of worship and religious schools, and treat places of worship on comparable terms to nonreligious places of assembly related to parking and landscaping.
The consent order, of approved, would require Kingston to train its officials and employees on the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and establish a procedure for receiving and resolving complaints.
“Time and time again, local governments enact zoning laws that threat places of worship and religious schools worse than comparable secular places of assembly, and unreasonably limit where religious land uses can locate. And too often the Jewish community bears the brunt of those restrictions,” stated Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Right’s Division. “The Justice Department will relentlessly pursue and prosecute jurisdictions that violate RLUIPA.”
The suit alleges members of the Chabad community, who had been worshipping in a basement of a private home, were seeking a permanent space for religious use and purchased 445 Wyoming Ave., a less-than-one-acre plot in Kingston’s commercial district.
Under the 2023 ordinance, which prohibits new places of worship in a commercial district, the Chabad community had to seek a special exception permit to open 445 Wyoming Ave. as a library.
“Because of the growing community and the limitations on expanding existing places of worship or opening new places of worship under the (2023) new ordinance, the Chabad community has had to find additional temporary locations to gather to pray and practice their faith, currently including spaces in an office building and in private homes including a garage and a basement,” the suit says.
The suit says there are more than 500 pre-school, elementary school, and middle school children of Chabad families residing in Kingston.
The suit alleges two counts of the Religious Lane Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
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