Alpharetta votes down Islamic Center expansion

By Ralph Ellis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Alpharetta City Council voted 6-0 to reject an expansion proposal by the Islamic Center of North Fulton on Monday night, but the battle over the worship center might not be over.

Attorney Doug Dillard, representing the Islamic Center, said after the meeting he'll recommend that it file lawsuits in state and federal court. He said the city previously had approved a number of other churches of similar size.

“There needs to be a consistency,” Dillard said. “There can’t be a different standard for their religion.”

A crowd of 150 squeezed into council chambers to hear several hours of arguments about the congregation’s plans to tear down the 2,500-square-foot house where it now worships and construct two buildings: a 1,900-square-foot multi-purpose building facility and a 12,000-square-foot, two-story main building.

Residents of surrounding subdivisions said the project was too big for the four-acre lot and would make traffic worse on Rucker Road. But most residents and the council were concerned that the worship center was backing out of previous agreements made before Alpharetta annexed the property in 2005.

Fulton County granted approval when the congregation moved into the house in 1998, and again in 2004 when it added a second house as a residence for the imam. But Fulton imposed the condition that the worship center not expand beyond those buildings.

"When you make an agreement you hold to that agreement," said Mayor Arthur Letchas. "You just don't kick out an agreement like that."

“They want to argue hardship and they want to renege on those agreements,” resident Richard Nitto said. “This is not about religion. … It’s about contractural agreements.”

Members of the congregation argued the ranch-style house used for worship was too small and rundown.

Pete Hendricks, another attorney for the worship center, said conditions imposed by Fulton County were not a contract in the conventional sense. He called it an “ethereal agreement” in which the worship center didn’t agree but didn’t object.

Congregation leaders said that times have changed, that several Islamic worship centers have opened on the north side in recent years and that they need a larger facility to attract and keep young people interested.

The mood turned testy when Parwaiz Iqbal told the council that a vote against the worship center would be similar to flying a banner in downtown Alpharetta that said Muslims aren’t welcome, adding that such a vote would “be like choking and suffocating our congregation.”

Planners said the project fell within acceptable boundaries for size and traffic flow. Yet the planning commission recommended rejecting the proposal on May 6, citing conditions placed by Fulton County in 1998 and 2004.

About 600 people are now affiliated with the center, though many of them don’t worship there. The city said about 25 people attend five prayer services every day except Friday, when about the turnout grows to 250 people who worship at the 1 and 2 p.m. services. Residents said traffic is at its worst during those times.