North Hempstead’s town board spent more than two years denying, appealing, and relitigating a mosque expansion that didn’t require a single variance. Now it’s voting Wednesday to approve it.
The April 15, 2026 vote would grant conditional site plan approval to the Hillside Islamic Center’s proposed expansion in New Hyde Park, reversing a January 2024 denial that triggered two separate lawsuits and left a congregation in legal limbo while attorneys on both sides racked up fees.
The project itself isn’t complicated. About 6,600 square feet of additional space. Sixty-three parking spots. The zoning board had recommended approval. Town code required no variances. The North Hempstead Town Board said no anyway, in January 2024, after a contentious run of public hearings dominated by parking and traffic complaints from neighboring residents.
That decision cost everybody.
What followed was a predictable sequence for anyone who covers municipal zoning disputes involving religious institutions. The Hillside Islamic Center filed suit in both state and federal court, with the federal case landing in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaints cited the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, along with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections, arguing the town had weaponized zoning authority to obstruct religious exercise. Separately, an Article 78 proceeding wound through Nassau County Supreme Court. In January 2025, that court overturned the denial entirely. The town appealed.
So the board is now voting to approve something a state court already told it to approve fourteen months ago.
Umberto Mignardi, the town’s communications director, said the Wednesday resolution reflects roughly a month of negotiations between municipal attorneys and the mosque’s legal team. “Over the past month, all parties have engaged in negotiations with a clear willingness to address both the congregants’ and community’s concerns,” Mignardi said. He added that the talks have been collaborative.
The conditions attached to Wednesday’s proposed approval focus on the same two issues that dominated the 2024 hearings: parking and traffic. The proposed measures include managed parking protocols and designated off-site spaces intended to reduce congestion during Friday prayers and weekend services. Whether those conditions fully satisfy the neighbors who drove the original opposition isn’t yet clear.
What is clear is that the legal fees on both sides didn’t have to happen. The zoning board’s own recommendation was approval. The project was code-compliant. The 2025 court ruling confirmed what the center’s attorneys had argued from the start.
Reaction from the center’s supporters was cautious but positive. “It’s definitely a good move,” one supporter said, though the sentiment came with a sharp edge: “We wish the town board had initially reached the same decision. It would have spared the community unnecessary distress, hardship and financial burden.”
That’s the question Nassau County taxpayers should be asking right now. What did this cost? The town’s legal defense of a 2024 denial that a court later threw out didn’t come free. Municipal attorneys don’t work for nothing. Each hearing, each appeal, each negotiating session draws from the same pool of public funds that pays for roads, parks, and code enforcement across North Hempstead.
The town hasn’t released a full accounting of its legal expenditures in the Hillside Islamic Center litigation. That number should be public before Wednesday’s vote, not after.
Mignardi framed the resolution as a product of good-faith collaboration. “The parties are continuing to work toward a consent order, and while nothing has been finalized, there is agreement on the process for approving a revised site plan with conditions which will be submitted to the board,” he said. “We are optimistic that Wednesday’s vote will allow the process to move forward.”
That’s a reasonable statement. It’s also a description of how things should have worked in April 2024 instead of January 2026.
The Hillside Islamic Center’s expansion represents 6,600 square feet of space for a congregation that’s been waiting years. The board vote is Wednesday. The parking conditions are the sticking point. The legal bills are already spent.