Islamic center construction in Loganville draws controversy

By Jim Thompson – The Walton Tribune

City council, locals caught off-guard by mosque in Walton County

The current building for the Loganville Islamic Center, which is constructing a three-story replacement on its Lee Byrd Road location. Contributed image

Signs that construction of a three-story, 19,000-square-foot Islamic center is underway on a five-acre lot at 883 Lee Byrd Road in Loganville have caught some of the city’s elected officials by surprise and unleashed some community concern on social media.

The Loganville Islamic Center has operated on the tract since 2023, when the land was purchased by the Lawrenceville-based Georgia Islamic Institute of Religious and Social Sciences Inc for $630,000.

Initially housed in a 3,062-square-foot residence on the property that was subsequently expanded with an outbuilding, the Loganville Islamic Center is one of three masjids — often called mosques in English — affiliated with the Georgia Islamic Institute. Masjids serve as venues for daily prayer and education and also as community centers. The other two local masjids affiliated with the Georgia Islamic Institute are in Lawrenceville and Bethlehem.

According to Walton County tax records, the property carries a Loganville residential zoning designation, R44, which primarily covers detached single-family dwellings, except mobile homes. Some agricultural uses also are allowed on R44-zoned properties, as are home-based occupations.

But the city’s zoning ordinance also allows “churches, synagogues, chapels, and other places of religious worship and instructions” within all residential zoning classifications in the city. They are allowed among a set of “special uses” for residentially zoned properties, provided they are located on tracts comprising at least three acres, and meet other standards outlined in the zoning ordinance’s standards for office and industrial districts.

The Loganville Islamic Center apparently meets those qualifications, because construction was only allowed to proceed after 14 months of working with the city on the project. According to Assistant City Manager Jeff Smith, the project went through seven different plan submittals with the city, including engineering reviews and reviews associated with fire safety and utilities.

That, however, has done little to placate at least some members of the Loganville City Council, who contend that progress on the Islamic Center project should have been brought to their attention.

“Your city council has absolutely no part in this, and was at no point brought up to speed on this,” Councilwoman Melanie Long said in a Wednesday interview.

Had the council been made aware that plans for the new center were proceeding toward construction, Long suggested that the council could have told city staff to stop working with development of the center, and might have taken the matter to court.

Councilwoman Lisa Newberry, who chairs the council’s Planning & Development Committee, and was elected to the council for a term that began in January of 2024 after serving a previous term from 2018-2022, said she did not recall the council ever considering any sort of special-use request for the Lee Byrd Road tract where the Islamic facility is under construction.

“If the public is concerned, I’m concerned,” Newberry said in a Thursday telephone interview.

Newberry went on to point out that the city council has been focused on zoning and development issues, with a consultant-led rewrite of the city’s zoning ordinance underway and a moratorium on rezoning and annexation requests in place while that work is being done.

“We’re working hard to control growth,” Newberry said.

Councilwoman Patti Wolfe said Thursday that she has asked the city’s planning director for whatever file his office has on the Loganville Islamic Center so that she can determine how the process started and to learn its current status.

A Wednesday phone call from The Walton Tribune to Loganville Planning & Development Director Robbie Schwartz was referred to Smith.

In addition to outlining the site planning process, Smith noted that there are potential legal ramifications connected to the Islamic Center project, particularly regarding the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. According to Smith, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) “keeps a very close eye on things like this.”

Beyond that, local governments must concern themselves with the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a 2000 federal law that works to protect houses of worship from discrimination in zoning regulations, and from “landmarking” laws that can sometimes serve to restrict religious organizations from changing or expanding their facilities.

According to a synopsis of RLUIPA from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the law “prohibits zoning and landmarking laws that substantially burden the religious exercise of churches or other religious assemblies or institutions” by going beyond the least restrictive means of addressing “a compelling governmental interest.”

Additionally, according to the DOJ synopsis, RLUIPA “prohibits zoning and landmarking laws that … treat churches or other religious assemblies or institutions on less than equal terms with nonreligious assemblies or institutions; … discriminate against any assemblies or institutions on the basis of religion or religious denomination; … totally exclude religious assemblies from a jurisdiction; … (or) unreasonably limit religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction.”

In other comments on the Loganville Islamic Center project, Smith pointed out that the city has a long history of allowing churches to be established in residential neighborhoods.

“It’s been allowed in the city since the 1960s, and it’s pretty common,” Smith said.

Common or not, news that construction is underway at the Islamic Center site — a billboard at the front of the property includes an artist’s rendering of what the finished facility will look like — provoked some significant local reaction on social media.

The Facebook page “Walton County Rants & Raves 2.0” included a lengthy thread on the Loganville Islamic Center, with comments including “these people do not want to coexist with us, they want to take over our country,” “Not all Muslims, but many, believe that the laws of their faith are more important than our secular laws,” and “they literally fight in every country they invade.”

Those kinds of comments were, however, counterbalanced by posts noting things like, “I know Muslims and they are not a threat,” “everyone here has the right to practice whatever religion they wish,” and “I think we have enough to worry about besides complaining about a community place to worship.”

The story was much the same at the Facebook page “Concerned Citizens for Loganville Growth,” where comments such as “Can we make sure this is watched carefully to make certain that there’s no children being taken as brides or anything else in this county?”, “Muslim and Islam is not a race. It’s a political movement based on a religion,” and “They absolutely hate all Americans unless of course they can convert you,” were juxtaposed with comments including, “The fact that people feel comfortable to share bigotry online about this speaks volumes about this community,” “the Loganville I grew up in was not THIS racist,” and “Freedom of religion doesn’t seem allowed in Loganville.”