See HERE for more details.
In September of 1989, my old elementary school, Blanche Borg which lay abandoned for several years, was purchased at auction by a Muslim Community Center. Most of those connected with the Muslim Community Center have roots in India and Pakistan, not the Middle East, and in 1990 they paid $1.83 million for the school.
In November 2002, Muslim leaders proposed building a mosque on school grounds.
The center used the site for 13 years as a school and held services in its gymnasium. It was turned down on plans to add a mosque to the property in 2003. Village officials said they denied the mosque a building permit because its plans had insufficient parking.
From the outset, the mosque plan met opposition from neighborhood residents who said the school and Friday prayers were causing traffic and parking problems.
Initially, the group's plans called for a mosque for 600 people and 144 parking spots on property next to the school. The center scaled down the proposal and brought it back to the village, but Morton Grove officials would not consider it.
Some residents said the site with the mosque would require 10 acres, rather than the Muslim Education Center's current four.
Despite the ruling, village officials would eventually amend the zoning code and the center would build a mosque on the property. In a $5 million lawsuit, school officials said the village violated the federal Religious Land-Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 by unlawfully restricting religious assembly.
In its lawsuit, the Muslim Community Center said it has met Morton Grove's zoning requirements and the village arbitrarily rejected the proposal. The center allege in the lawsuit that five of the six houses of worship in the village have more people attending per acre than the center proposed. Village officials have said they rejected the plan because they fear a mosque would add to traffic problems in the neighborhood.
The officials said that the action is necessary to "prevent a dangerous precedent for other Muslim communities and Islamic Centers across the nation."
The members of the Muslim Community Center based in Chicago said they would forgo the money and drop the suit if the village issues a zoning permit allowing them to build a mosque for 500 people.
In June 2004 Morton Grove and the Muslim Community Center reached an agreement.
The agreement, reached with help from the U.S. Department of Justice will allow the Muslim Community Center to request a special-use permit to build a mosque for 525 worshipers, expand its education facility and include parking for up to 224 vehicles.
In 2007, the building of the mosque began and is still being added on to today.
The mosque includes a 55-foot high minaret and a domed building, along with expanded classrooms for its existing school.
The problem with the parking, even though the site built an extra parking lot, is still huge to this day. There have been parking zoning issues, police having to sit outside near the mosque to direct traffic, especially during Ramadan. There are constant violations and tickets being given more to people who come to worship at the church from other places, who do not follow the zoning signs. There is also a lot of traffic, speeding and so forth. So this has been an ongoing issue.
And out house was 6 doors down from it all...
This, in conjunction with the tearing down of homes in order to build very tall and large ones, were the leading factors as to why we chose to sell instead of add a flood system to our home.
So our house went up on the market and sold in 6 days!!!
This reinforced my belief that people really love to near near their houses of worship.
So now we just had to find a home in Florida.
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