The Warnerville United Methodist Church is taking its warming station to the ZBA.
Frederic Mauhs, attorney for the church, filed an application asking for a ZBA interpretation of Code Officer Jay Belifore’s “cease and desist” order closing the facility on Monday.
While the ZBA could take up to 45 days to schedule a hearing and respond, it’s a “humanitarian emergency,” Mr. Mauhs said; he’s asking the ZBA to issue its decision in seven days—or allow the warming station to reopen on an interim basis while the dispute is resolved.
“It’s a very, very strong simple case,” he said Monday. “We already have the authority. It’s what a church does. It’s central to its mission. It’s more central than anything else.”
In his application to the ZBA, Mr. Mauhs called Mr. Belifore’s November 16 cease and desist order closing the warming station, a “train wreck of governmental actions completely untethered from applicable law, that torpedoed the church’s response, leaving the congregation devastated and the Schoharie County Department of Social Services scrambling…”
As a church, Mr. Mauhs said, the WUMC has every right to operate the warming station under the Town of Richmondville’s Zoning Code; it also has a First Amendment right to operate the facility.
According to Mr. Mauhs, Mr. Belifore closed the warming station on grounds that it violated the state building code—something very different from zoning and “a conclusion he had reached without ever having inspected the facility.”
Mr. Belifore then followed up with the written cease and desist order alleging only a zoning violation, he said.
Zoning determines which uses are allowed in a particular neighborhood; codes regulations regulates things like safety and construction materials.
“It’s critical that the ZBA addresses this on an expedited basis or at least allow the church to reopen the warming center while it sorts it all out,” Mr. Mauhs said.