The lot on 222 Hartrey Ave. stays unoccupied while Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov Elementary, an Orthodox Jewish school, and the city engage in an ongoing lawsuit for JDBY’s rights to build on the property.
In January 2007, the school bought the six-acre property to expand its over-populated Chicago school, said Moshe Davis, the president of the Associated Talmud Torahs of Chicago school board. However, the property had been an industrial zone at the time JDBY purchased it, which does not allow for the building of schools, religious or secular.
Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) could not be reached for comment for this story. City attorney Grant Farrar, former plan commission member Charles Staley, Ald. Coleen Burrus (9th), city manager Wally Bobkiewicz and city spokesperson Eric Palmer declined to comment.
According to court documents, JDBY first submitted an appeal to build on the lot as a religious institution, which is allowed on industrial zones, shortly after the purchase. The city denied the appeal, maintaining JDBY’s standing as an educational institution.
After several more appeals, JDBY withdrew them all except one asking the city to change the zone type from industrial to commercial. The city also denied this motion.
“We thought it would be a safe property behind the shopping center, behind the church, with a safe religious atmosphere for our school,” Davis said. “We thought it was an obvious no-brainer.”
City officials including Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and Ald. Delores Holmes (5th) cited the tax-revenue loss and “permanent loss of already scarce land zoned as industrial” as reasons for denying JDBY’s appeals, according to court documents. They further stated the city would only accept buildings on the property as long as they had potential for industrial use.
However, Davis said JDBY is willing to make up for any losses in tax revenue.
“We sympathize with them,” he said. “We would make a deal with them so that we would offset the problem that Evanston has about not being on the taxroll.”
As for the city official’s second point, Davis said there is no industrial demand for the property in question.
“There is no industry that wants that property anymore,” he said. “The property was vacant for many, many years and the owner at the time in 2006 was just tired of it.”
JDBY sued the city in Spring 2009 to get a zoning release on grounds of violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, according to court documents. A church next to the property had been allowed a special exemption to build on the industrial zone; JDBY representatives argue in their lawsuit the city violated the act when it granted the church the right to build.
Extending the similarity between the two cases, JDBY claims the city also violated the Equal Protection Clause.
In two weeks, both sides will respond to the motions filed by giving rebuttals in court. The judge will have two months to rule on the motions.
“We feel that this is a basic First Amendment right, it’s a religious land-use right,” Davis said. “This is a state tax issue and a federal law. You can’t mess around with it. It’s black and white and they’re doing this improperly.”
Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, the city council unanimously voted to eliminate the exemption allowing for religious institutions to build in industrial zones.
Davis said the school had overspent financially in order to maintain the lawsuit as well as a school composed of middle-class students, 80 percent of whom are receiving some form of financial aid.
“We’re doing our best to keep our heads above water,” Davis said.
Several aldermen were asked not to comment on the lawsuit.
“We’ve been looking for many years for an alternative location for the school and when this option came up, we thought this would be ideal,” Davis said. “I don’t know what would be the benefit of leaving it vacant forever.”
