Burr Ridge Members of MECCA Speak Out in Support of Muslim Community Center

Update: Andrea Korovesis at DuPage County told Patch that "the Development Committee voted on MECCA's petition at [the Tuesday, March 15] meeting and approved it 4-1, with a list of conditions. The County Board will take up the item at its next meeting, which will be Tuesday, March 22."

A circle drive sits in front of an older house just west of Route 83 on 91st Street. If all goes well for the Muslim Educational Cultural Center of America (MECCA), this summer a new structure will begin to rise on the property—a Muslim Community Center.

The new building would serve as a location for prayer services within the Muslim community, especially for major services held that draw 200 or 300 individuals each week, says Burr Ridge resident and MECCA Secretary and Executive Committee Member Dr. Rany Jazayerli.

The center would also be a location for educational services, small-group lectures on the Koran for children and for Sunday school within the Muslim community, says MECCA President Dr. Muhammad Hamadeh, who is also lives in Burr Ridge.

In addition to these activities, MECCA also works with neighboring churches, helps to provide food for the needy, tutors children at Anne M. Jeans Elementary School and holds many interfaith activities, including lectures, Hamadeh says.

“Interfaith events would improve understanding among different communities,” says Hamadeh. “When we know each other … perception changes,” he says.

Currently, Muslims living in or near Burr Ridge must travel about 14 miles north to Villa Park, more than seven miles east to Bridgeview for services, or approximately 20 miles west to Naperville. There is no mosque serving the Burr Ridge, Willowbrook, Hinsdale or Clarendon Hills communities.

The new property is adjacent to a Macedonian Church, a Buddhist Temple and a worship center for another Muslim sect, Jazayerli says.

“I am very hopeful that the DuPage County Board will do the right thing and treat us equally,” Hamadeh says.

MECCA purchased the land about four years ago, and would move to the new site from its current location on the crowded first floor of an office building at 720 E. Plainfield Rd. in Willowbrook, Jazayerli says.

Internally, the nonprofit organization has been working on the project for two years, including designing an architectural plan and lowering the risk of flooding onto adjacent properties. It has been in process with the DuPage County Board for about nine months, Jazayerli says.

The next step for the mosque will occur during a DuPage County Board Development Committee meeting on March 15. If all goes well, then the committee will send the plan to the full DuPage County Board for a vote. However, the committee could send the proposal back to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

When the DuPage County Development Committee met on Feb. 15, it tabled the discussion of MECCA’s proposal until its mid-March meeting to allow staff members to study it in more depth, says Andrea Korovesis, who is serving as an interim public relations staff employee at the DuPage County Board.

Concerns by the property’s neighbors include flooding and traffic problems, Hamadeh notes.

“They are genuine concerns,” he says.

In response to them, MECCA has decreased the height of the building and eliminated a multi-purpose room to address traffic concerns. They have also increased the size of the landscaping buffer with their neighbors, Hamadeh says.

Residential land is lower than the land on the newly-purchased property. One of the ways that MECCA is attempting to reduce potential flooding is by adding permeable pavers, so that rainwater drips through to the ground, rather than running off onto neighbors’ property, Hamadeh says. The organization will also capture rainwater, and pipe it north or south of the immediate areas of concern, he says. Hamaedeh also says that DuPage County engineers stated that these solutions would solve potential flooding problems.

In addition, a traffic engineering consultant completed a study about a year ago and said that there would be no appreciable traffic problems, Jazayerli says.

“I am optimistic that the law will prevail and we will get permission to build the center,” Jazayerli says.