Boca Raton, FL – A proposed law allowing houses of worship to go up in single-family neighborhoods without City Council approval has quietly been making its way through City Hall.
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City officials said they're crafting the local ordinance to comply with federal laws that prohibit cities from discriminating against religious organizations.
That has at least one neighborhood activist concerned about the potential impact on residential areas throughout the city.
"A place of worship is a business," said Anthony Majhes, a Boca Villa resident. Houses of worship attract as many people as possible, they need employees, they require delivery trucks coming and going. They have the potential to significantly change the character of residential neighborhoods. And the proposed law would allow it to happen with little, if any, public input, Majhes said.
Majhes, who has been talking to city officials about the proposed law, said he knows of a rabbi who has been seeking to buy two properties next door to each other to build a synagogue in his neighborhood.
There should be an approval process with citizen participation, he said. "By allowing this as a permitted use, you lose all that," Majhes said.
The council will hold the first of two required public hearings on the proposed ordinance during its Tuesday meeting. [sun-sentinel]
There is no doubt in my mind that MR. Majhes is of Jewish origin. In every case without fail, those opposing any improvement of a spiritual nature, Be it the implementation of an EIRUV or the organizing of a MINYAN on a local level, the usual culprits will come forward and fight it tooth and nail. As to the proposed amendment of the law. A Shul can be organized on a small (non-commercial) scale for the convenience of the immediate neighborhood.
only Lubavitch puts shuls in houses. everyone else is happy with a properly zoned shul.
Boca does not need any more mesichistics proselytizing to the intermarried Jewish men in Boca.
I’m with the “anti semites” in this one.
chabad house.
he may be right that shuls are a business…but that is NOT what’s bothering him, and you also know that quite well.
he is very right. shuls are a big buisiness. unfortunately.!!