The borough of Kingston, Pa., has agreed to change its zoning rules to allow a growing community of Orthodox Jews to build synagogues and other religious institutions.

The agreement, still subject to court approval, ends a lawsuit that the U.S. Justice Department brought against the Northeastern Pennsylvania borough, charging that Kingston’s 2023 zoning ordinance violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

That law prevents communities from subjecting religious institutions to more onerous requirements than similar non-religious facilities where groups of people gather, such as theaters, bowling alleys and libraries.

The Justice Department said the land-use requirements made it almost impossible to build new synagogues and other religious institutions, such as religious schools and mikvehs, to serve the growing Orthodox population.

“These restrictions unreasonably limit religious land uses to only a tiny fraction of existing parcels in the entire borough such that, in practice, there are essentially no available qualifying parcels on which to develop a new place of worship,” the department stated. (JNS sought comment from Kingston officials.)

Borough officials agreed to revise the ordinance to allow religious institutions to open in commercial districts or receive special-use permits for residential areas, and to subject them to the same rules as nonreligious gathering places regarding such items as parking and landscaping.

“Time and time again, local governments enact zoning laws that treat places of worship and religious schools worse than comparable secular places of assembly, and unreasonably limit where religious land uses can locate,” stated Harmeet Dhillon, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights. “Too often, the Jewish community bears the brunt of those restrictions.”

The consent decree also requires the borough to train its employees on the law governing land use requirements for religious institutions.

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