RLUIPA topic on Tuesday's Legislature agenda
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- March
- 14
Legislator Joseph Meyers’ resolution requesting Congress to review and amend the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, also known as RLUIPA, will go up for a vote before the full Rockland County Legislature on Tuesday night.
The measure has passed through two committees. The resolution was Meyers’ first as a county legislator, though during election season last year he was more forceful in his campaign against RLUIPA, calling repeatedly for the law to be repealed. Meyers is a Democrat from Airmont.
People on both sides of the RLUIPA debate are expected to speak during the Legislature’s public participation session at the start of the meeting.
The meeting begins at 8 p.m. in the Legislature chambers at 11 New Hempstead Road in New City.
This entry was posted
on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm by Sarah Netter.
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This just shows that Meyers is absolutely delusional.
He thinks this is Ramapo County, not Rockland County. sigh
RLUIPA is piece of legislation that throws the baby out with the bathwater. There is no question that are
situations througout our country where religious groups face discrimination discrimination in land use or where local land use controls are excessive. Existing civil rights legislation already can be used to fight this discrimination. On the other hand, local municipalities are now faced with am ambiguous law where the results are draconian. A municipality must now pay the legal expenses of the plaintiff if it loses a case even if it sincerely believed it has a "compelling" to turn down an application from a religious insitution. This law also encourages fraud because the rewards for breaking zoning codes are so substantial. Nothing in the law exists that would discourage an ambitious builder from creating a "religious" use in order to make huge profits by building high density housing on land that was bought relatively cheaply because that use was previously prohibited. Yes, we do need wise regional planning in order to provide housing for poor people, but do we really want to take land use controls out of the hands of state and local authorities and hand them over to the federal courts? Robert I. Rhodes, Chairman, Preserve Ramapo, www.PreserveRamapo.org.
Rhodes, did we need your input? No. You're not a Legislator, and Meyers needs to know that it's not the Ramapo County Legislature.
Preserve Ramapo where both of you are members, are made up of NUTS.
Now, go away, both of you.
Isn't this a public forum where anyone can comment?! You really are "too much"!!