BANGOR, Maine — The owner of a Brewer shopping center has sued the city and its code enforcement officer over a church’s decision to move after being denied a building permit to expand.
Attorneys for Dana Cassidy, the owner of North Brewer Shopping Plaza, sued the city of Brewer and Ben Breadmore on Wednesday in U.S. District Court. In the complaint, Cassidy contended he has been harmed economically because the city’s land use regulations “treat the church unequally and discriminate against it on the basis of religion.”
Brewer allows funeral homes, theaters, clubhouses and clubs, community service organizations and private schools in the Convenience Business District, where the shopping center is located, according to the complaint. A church is not a permitted use.
That violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal law, Cassidy’s attorney, Edmond Bearor of Bangor, said Friday.
Last month, Cassidy said that statute prevents the city from treating the church as a business.
The Rock Church of Greater Bangor Inc., located at 1195 Ohio St. in Bangor, began renting space in Cassidy’s North Main Street shopping center three years ago as a second location in which to hold worship services and other activities. Brewer granted building and occupancy permits for the space, according to the complaint.
Efforts to reach attorney Joel Dearborn, who represents Brewer, were unsuccessful Friday.
The building permit was signed in 2009 by the previous code enforcement officer. Breadmore signed the occupancy permit for the previous space in June 2011. The delay in issuing the occupancy permit apparently was due to the personnel change in the code enforcement office, Bearor said.
In February, church officials signed a new lease with Cassidy that would have more than tripled its space for services and other activities. The church’s building permit application was denied in a letter dated Feb. 17, 2012, and signed by Breadmore.
In the letter, the code enforcement officer called the church’s use of the building legal but nonconforming. Due to that, Breadmore wrote, the church could not legally expand at its current location.
The Brewer location combined its operation with the Bangor church again. The Rock Church plans to launch a capital campaign later this year to build a 350- to 370-seat auditorium near its Bangor location on Ohio Street, according to a previously published report.
The Rock Church was to have paid Cassidy $7,000 per month for a 14,000-square-foot space for four years, according to the complaint. The space it previously rented in the plaza was 4,500 square feet.
Cassidy is asking U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby, who has been assigned the case, to declare that Brewer’s Land Use Code is unlawfully written. The shopping center owner is seeking compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and litigation costs.
Attorneys for the city and Breadmore have 21 days after they are served with the complaint to file answers in federal court in Bangor.
Brewer had a great code-man with Mr. Russell. Once they “squeezed” him out and hired the current one..there has been alot more discontent in town. He likes to strut athority.
Just like Bangor, they didnt squeeze that one out, but the one we have now is horrible, you can not even get him to check out things that get reported
sometimes it takes years, true story
Mr. Russell is alive and well in Oldtown . A real decent fair man to work with.
Did the new guy check with anybody else in the city Gov. or did he make a arbitrary decision? If he did just throw his weight around he should be termenated immediatly. BTW does the owner think he will never be able to rent the space now? C’mon Man!
“the code enforcement officer called the church’s use of the building legal but nonconforming”
It is either legal or illegal…
“Legal nonconforming” means that a currently existing structure conformed to the codes (or at least was legal) at the time that it was built, but would not be allowed under the current codes if built now, as is. It basically means the same thing as “grandfathered.”
It’s too bad…The Rock Church is amazing.
Brewer is toast, RLUIPA forbids a municipality from enforcing zoning restrictions on churches while allowing similar non religious similar land uses … clubs and community service organizations.
Where would the half Million dollars Mr Cassidy is seeking come from?
Hopefully from Ben Breadmore, since he is the one who screwed up, and exposed the city to the liability.
Insurance. I believe they have insurance to cover stupid moves by town inspectors and enforcement officers.
Who pays the premium for the City? The taxpayers. What happens to insurance premium after an exorbitant number or value of claims? They go up. Either way, that $500k would come from the taxpayers of Brewer. Like westshores said, let them stay. Cassidy is paid, there’s no lawsuit, insurance premium doesn’t go up, taxes don’t go up. Who doesn’t win?
I do not disagree with you. I only gave an answer to a question asked. Do not jump down my throat if you do not like the answer I gave. I don’t even live in Brewer. Only went to school there a hundred years ago.
________________________________
From: Disqus
To: frostylobomerlin@yahoo.com
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 3:08 PM
Subject: [bdn] Re: Owner of Brewer shopping center sues city over Rock Church’s move
Disqus generic email template
pete_zurea wrote, in response to frostylobomerlin:
Who pays the premium for the City? The taxpayers. What happens to insurance premium after an exorbitant number or value of claims? They go up. Either way, that $500k would come from the taxpayers of Brewer. Like westshores said, let them stay. Cassidy is paid, there’s no lawsuit, insurance premium doesn’t go up, taxes don’t go up. Who doesn’t win? Link to comment
Easy speed racer. No throat jumping here. I, like you, am making a point. I probably shouldn’t have clicked ‘reply’.
Sorry. It came off as a personal attack.
________________________________
From: Disqus
To: frostylobomerlin@yahoo.com
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 4:57 PM
Subject: [bdn] Re: Owner of Brewer shopping center sues city over Rock Church’s move
Disqus generic email template
pete_zurea wrote, in response to frostylobomerlin:
Easy speed racer. No throat jumping here. I, like you, am making a point. I probably shouldn’t have clicked ‘reply’. Link to comment
why do you keep posting the entire reply email in your messages?
Maybe the Brewer Housing Authority could rezone the shopping center so Cal Bubar could build affordable housing and donate the proceeds to the city.
How can the owner sue for discrimination based on religion? He is not a church, he is a landlord. The former tenants were a church. Sould not they be the ones suing? He was not disriminated against, he just lost a tenant.
The owner is losing the rental income because Brewer appears to be in violation of Federal law.
The Church is being a good neighbor and just moved on, they care about the community and fighting in court is not neighborly.
good i hope they win, brewer stinks since Russell left ,they tried to say vinyl jobs needed to be inspected the only city to do that and said replacement windows were illegal,what a joke
Brewer has issues with code inforcement officers.. They are supposed to follow the letter of the law, except when told to ignore it by the city fathers, which makes it hard to be an honest code enforcement officer… When Tanya was there for development corp, you saw how many building were torn down, to make room for empty lots. now she is in Bangor maybe planning the same for Bangor..
good to see Dave in old town now we can look forward to doing business there,unlike in the past when the previous guy demanded pt lumber in window frames that were then covered with metal.another power move !
They shoudl not have been there in the first place. Ignorance of the law is not a excuse for violating it.
The story says “The building permit was signed in 2009 by the previous code enforcement
officer. Breadmore signed the occupancy permit for the previous space in
June 2011. The delay in issuing the occupancy permit apparently was due
to the personnel change in the code enforcement office, Bearor said.”
Apparently they were not violating the law by their use of the previous space. I think this is only about the larger space they wanted to lease and use. The church decided to leave rather than fight the city over this. Does that sound like they wanted to violate the law?
In old town the city and code inforcement officer approved a resturant, so the man invested 10’s of thousands into the building, then the code inforcement officer told him it wasn’t zone for that type of business. Since he had all the paper work approving the bussiness then saying no the city paid for all the improvements lawyer fees and were forced to allow him to open. It was a great day!!!
Hate to see a law suit about anything. But the man has a case.
This popular Church will probably grow out of this facility soon anyway. Why not compromise and let them stay for some reasonable amount of time. Everyone wins.
Larry what does Brewer do now?? Call the City of Bangor they can help.