(RNS) — A Hindu group that wants to build a temple and residential project is suing a Chicago suburb to overturn a nearly 60-year-old legal agreement that blocks their plans.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday (July 14) by Umiya Mataji Sanstha Chicago Midwest, a Hindu religious community, said that a 1967 consent decree meant to create a buffer between a railroad line and residential homes governs a 34-acre property in Elgin, Illinois, which the Hindu community owns. 

Earlier this year, Elgin officials approved plans for a temple and houses to be built on the site, but that approval cannot be made final while the consent decree remains in place. The Hindu group, which serves the Kadva Patidar community, argues in the lawsuit that the consent decree could be used to religiously discriminate against them.

The plaintiffs have also asked for a preliminary injunction to bar the city from withholding final approval and permits and to bar neighbors from trying to enforce the 1967 consent decree.

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 The decree, which does not mention race or religion, allows offices or other limited business development on the site but does not allow for homes to be built. A house of worship is not specifically barred or permitted on the site.

The city has no plans to oppose the lawsuit, but a group of about 300 nearby property owners still have the right to object under the consent decree. More than 20 local residents spoke at a zoning hearing earlier this year, voicing their opposition, citing traffic and environmental concerns. 

 “This opposition has absolutely nothing to do with religion,” said Jessica Astrug, a nearby resident who was among those voicing opposition to the project during a zoning meeting, according to the Daily Herald newspaper. 

Religious zoning cases are often complicated, involving logistical concerns like traffic and taxes along with issues of religious liberty and sometimes religious discrimination. Faith groups are subject to the same zoning laws as businesses, schools and other entities but governments also have to treat faith groups fairly. 

The lawsuit cites the 2000 federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which was designed to keep governments from using zoning to discriminate against religious groups. Whether the law applies here, and whether a decree with no mention of religion could still block a temple, is up for dispute. 

“It’s not a RLUIPA case,” said Alan Weinstein, professor emeritus at Cleveland State University and an expert in religious land use, adding RLUIPA is usually cited when a city or other government entity opposes a house of worship being built. That is not the case with this temple.

He also said that the Umiya Mataji Sanstha was likely aware of the restrictions on the property when they bought it. “That is a classic self-created hardship,” he said.

Weinstein also said that neighbors have likely grown used to having undeveloped land near them, and that will make them harder to convince. He did wonder if some kind of mediation between neighbors and the Hindu group would be a better approach than a suit.

John Mauck, attorney for the Hindu group, said his clients currently meet in West Chicago, another suburb, and have been looking for a place to build a temple for years. They finally settled on the current site. He said that the consent decree is outdated — and that the city no longer supports it. And he said the decree also gives nearby residents almost unlimited veto power over what happens on the site.

That could lead to unintended consequences, such as allowing a neighbor who dislikes Hindu and Indian Americans to block the temple.

“The fact that they have arbitrary exclusion rights, we’re saying, makes the 1967 court order illegal as applied to this situation,” he told RNS in an interview.

Mauck told RNS that the consent decree predates RLUIPA and has not been tested in court. The complaint asks the court to evaluate whether the decree is enforceable now that religious land use laws have changed.

“A decree that made sense under the conditions of its original creation is not entitled to perpetual protection,” he wrote in the complaint.