Malverne Church sues Village

      The Cathedral Church of the Intercessor, located on St. Thomas Place, began proposing plans for an expansion of their building in 1998. Since then, the church became locked in a conflict with village officials, who have placed demands for zoning variances and several stop-work orders before the church, causing several delays in the project.
      "I really don't know why there have been so many problems," said Cathedral Church's Assistant Pastor Father David Klampert. "A growing church is not a bad thing."
      Just last week, the Cathedral Church responded to the numerous obstacles the village has placed in the way of their construction job with a federal lawsuit. The church is seeking a $1,000,000 payment from the village, $750,000 in punitive damages for what they claim is infringement upon their religious freedom and $250,000 to compensate for the cost of their repeated attempts to comply with the demands of village codes.
      Malverne Mayor Anthony Panzarella insists that he and the village board have only been watching over the construction as part of their "job to protect the residents in this community."
       The staff at the church however, views the issue in a much different light. "The defendants...have deprived the plaintiffs of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion," reads the church's formal complaint. By not allowing the church to expand, the church leaders feel that the village officials are opposing the church's efforts to accommodate their growing parish, and thus inhibiting their role as a religious institution.
      The Cathedral Church's attorney Michael McKenna cited a recently passed Congressional bill that prohibits municipalities from using building codes and zoning laws to hinder the operation of a religious institution.
      The Cathedral Church of the Intercessor is a young church belonging to a relatively young sect of Christianity - the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. During its short stay in Malverne, the Cathedral Church's congregation has grown from roughly 50 people in the 1980s to its current number of 750.
      To make room for its growing congregation, the church initially planned a 5,700 square foot expansion of their building. The proposed wing included several offices for the priests and a classroom. Formally, the church had been renting office space in classrooms in buildings outside of the church. Also, the extra room would allow for the extension of the altar and more space in the church itself.
      When the plan was first brought before the building department, village officials immediately voiced strong disapproval of the idea, according to McKenna. The church decided to redraw the plans and presented the village building department with a new proposal in 1999. The planned wing had been cut down to 2,275 square feet, half of its original dimensions.
      The building department informed the church that they needed to obtain a zoning variance for the proposal since they would be building commercial property in a residential area. McKenna claims that prior to the presentation the church had been told that they did not need a variance, and that the sudden news led to a year of what McKenna referred to as "expensive and costly modifications" of the proposal, which had to be represented to each review board before the church was finally able to obtain a building permit.
      The Cathedral Church made several changes to their proposal to make it more appealing to the village board, including plans for additional parking space. The village's primary concerns were based on issues of building safety, but McKenna argued that, "nothing the village demanded is specifically required under the building code in order to receive a permit."
      "We were even thinking of moving to a different village, but we couldn't find any available space," said Klampert.
       Since beginning construction on the new wing in October of 2000, the Cathedral Church has been served three separate stop-work orders from the village. McKenna said that the stop work orders hurt the project because "not only would it cause construction to cease for a few months, but because the contractors would have to move on to other jobs during the delays, construction would be pushed back even further."
      The church took the time to settle the first two orders, but chose to ignore the third, which led to the village taking them to court a few weeks ago. However, the proceedings were cut short after Malverne Building Superintendent Robert Solarino declared that all the construction done on the church's project thus far was "excellent." The village decided to lift the stop-work order soon afterwards.
      Even though construction has been allowed to continue, the Cathedral Church has grown frustrated with the village due to the many delays and expenses they have dealt with. After being out of court less than two weeks, the church has decided to bring a federal lawsuit of their own against the village, its trustees, its Architectural Review Board and Board of Zoning Appeals, four individual village officials, and Sidney B. Bowne & Son, the village's consultant engineer.
      According to McKenna, the actual damages fee will go towards "recovering the moneys the village forced to church to needlessly spend," while the punitive damages are intended to make a statement "establishing that a local government cannot run roughshod over a religious institution."
      "I just hope we'll be able to move forward without any more roadblocks and obtain our certificate of occupancy," said Klampert.
      The lawsuit is expected to last for over a year. But in the mean time, the construction of the new church wing will continue and is expected to be completed in six to eight weeks.