Harvard Chabad Accuses City Zoning Board of Religious Discrimination in Lawsuit

Harvard Chabad accused the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal of religious discrimination in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Friday morning after the board denied the group’s application to significantly expand its headquarters.

In June, the BZA narrowly denied Chabad’s application for a zoning variance to let them proceed with the renovation, which would merge two of its buildings and add more than 7,000 square feet to its current footprint. Chabad, a campus Jewish organization, says the expansion is necessary to accommodate its growing congregation.

Chabad said in the complaint that the BZA’s rejection was “unlawful, unreasonable, and discriminatory.” The group singled out Jim Monteverde, the BZA chairman, and Carol Agate, BZA associate member, who had previously voted against the Chabad’s expansion, accusing the pair of rigging the administrative process to prevent the proposal from passing.

“Not only did they succumb to anti-religious opposition from Chabad’s opponents, their statements on the record reveal their personal discriminatory intent,” the complaint alleges.

Chabad accused the BZA of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act – a federal law that protects religious groups from discriminatory zoning laws. In its complaint, the organization claimed the BZA treated it differently from “both religious and non religious institutions, and effectively excluded Judaism from the neighborhood.”

BZA members declined to comment on the lawsuit through a city spokesperson.

Chabad also alleged that the BZA violated the group’s rights to the free exercise of religion and the equal protection of the law under the Constitution.

The complaint comes after Chabad separately appealed the BZA’s decision to the Middlesex County Superior Court on Monday.

The BZA voted down the expansion, which exceeds size and density limits in the zoning code, over concerns that the scale of the project would be incompatible with the surrounding residential neighborhood.

The vote came after the Kerry Corner Neighborhood Association, a group of residents in the neighborhood, organized in opposition to the proposal, which they said would bring additional traffic and noise to the area.

In the lawsuit, Chabad said the KCNA “tried to have Chabad removed altogether,” and suggested their opposition was motivated by antisemitism.

“KCNA’s extreme position made its overarching motivation abundantly clear — it wanted to exile Chabad from the neighborhood altogether, not reach some sort of mutually beneficial settlement,” Chabad alleged. “It is not uncommon for antisemitic groups to form and try to impede zoning applications by Jewish groups.”

In a statement, the KCNA referred The Crimson to comments from members of the group at the June BZA hearing.

At that hearing, KCNA representative Deborah Epstein said the group had been open to negotiating Chabad’s expansion, but said Chabad was “firm” that “there will be no discussion of reducing square footage.”

Epstein also said the neighborhood association was “surprised and saddened” by Chabad’s characterization of the group as antisemitic.

“All of us — many of us are Jewish — although we were told by the Rabbi that we are not — deeply value all of our neighbors,” Epstein said, referring to Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi.

Zarchi declined to comment, but updated Chabad affiliates on the lawsuit in a Friday afternoon newsletter.

“We wanted our community to know — and we have communicated to the City officials — that we have no desire to engage in protracted litigation,” Zarchi wrote.

—Staff writer Aisatu J. Nakoulima can be reached at aisatu.nakoulima@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.