ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County’s attorneys are again defending the county’s decision to reject a synagogue’s expansion plans after receiving a letter from Tallahassee warning against antisemitism.
The August 8 letter from Attorney General James Uthmeier called the rejection of the Orlando Torah Center’s project “concerning,” although it ultimately admitted the circumstances around the rejection weren’t clear.
The Center’s congregation had been petitioning the county to raze its 1,600 square foot house-turned-synagogue so they could build a new synagogue and events center that was between 9,000 and 12,000 square feet in size.
The county rejected the plan because the new facility did not have the minimum number of parking spaces that the county’s code requires.
Last month, the congregation sued the county for religious discrimination, saying they didn’t need as many parking spaces because Orthodox Jews walk to their sabbath services.
“My clients were willing to agree to any reasonable conditions that could have mitigated any potential impacts on the community, but they were denied outright,” Attorney Roman Storzer said, after being asked about complaints from neighbors the streets were clogged on non-Sabbath days for school and other social events before the county began cracking down.
Uthmeier’s letter cited some public comments at the hearing for the Torah Center’s project that appeared to be aimed at the Orthodox Jewish community, rather than the project itself.
“Reports indicate that some residents have called the Jews at the Center ‘rabid dogs,’ claiming that the ‘neighborhood is going down the drain,’” Uthmeier wrote, without citing which reports he was referring to. “Let me be clear: there is no place for antisemitism in Florida.”
Uthmeier ended his letter by threatening legal consequences if Orange County ran afoul of the law.
Commissioners and county staff have largely brushed the accusations by the congregation and Uthmeier off. Nicole Wilson, who oversees the district the synagogue is located in, was audibly annoyed by the suggestion that she was discriminating against the congregation and emphasized that she was Jewish.
The proposal did not fit the neighborhood, she said. The congregation was welcome to build a large space for themselves on a larger piece of land, which is what local Christian churches cited in the congregation’s own lawsuit did.
In his August 15 response, County Attorney Jeff Newton agreed with Uthmeier’s statement on antisemitism, and said the county did not approve of the antisemitic comments, if any were made, and did not consider them when making its decision.
The decision “was based on fair and neutral legal criteria,” Newton said. “It was in no way based on religious animus.”
Newton said he could not provide a more detailed response because of the pending lawsuit.
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