City leaders sell property to Muslim group way below market price

City leaders sell property to Muslim group way below market price

A Muslim organisation has purchased a building at an extremely reasonable price from the municipality in order to expand its mosque. The opposition is outraged, accusing the city s leadership of selling the property with an estimated financial loss of one million euros, which the leaders deny.

WORLD POLITICS MARCH 26. 2021 13:43

Hot on the heels of a recent scandal surrounding Strasbourg s mayor – who offered a generous donation to support the construction of a new local mosque – another big French city s pro-Muslim leadership has also thrust itself into the limelight with a new decision that signals positive discrimination towards a Muslim organisation.

Some 10 km west of Paris, on the banks of the River Seine, Nanterre s leadership sold a local government building to the Ibn Badis Muslim organisation well below market price in order to facilitate the expansion of their mosque, which had become too small for the growing Muslim community. The expansion of the mosque at 237 Georges Clemenceau Avenue has been on the agenda since 2019, and the project may just kick off soon if the city council approves the sale of the former school building next to the mosque to the Muslim community during next Monday s meeting.

According to press reports, the property was home to the school for an extended period of time and then, since 1984, it s been the home of an adult education facility, which is moving out in September. The Ibn Badis organisation seized upon the opportunity to acquire the property adjacent to their place of worship to start the expansion. City Hall explained the decision to sell the property to the Muslim organisation citing that the number of worshippers attending the mosque had been on a steady rise since its opening and the building had become too small to accommodate them. The leadership added that due to inadequate capacity, many Muslim attendees were forced to pray outside on the streets, which caused tensions in the area. 

What the opposition was most outraged by was the selling price of the property. City Hall s contract defined the price of the building at only 2.705.000 euros. With the area of 2180 square metres, the estimated value of the property is the double of that, 5.4 million euros. To explain the extremely low price, City Hall said the building was rather run-down and dilapidated. They said it needed a complete overhaul to the tune of 2.4 million euros, which they deducted from the price. However, there has been much dispute about the potential renovation costs. Camille Bedin, the leader of the opposition political group Nanterre Ensemble said that in principle, she was in favour of renovating the building, but the Heritage Protection Office said the work would only cost 1.35 million euros. Ms Bedin opined that many local residents struggling with difficulties could receive assistance from the remaining 1 million euros.

City Hall denies all allegations that they offered preferential treatment to the Muslim organisation, pointing out that the overhaul will be way more expensive than the calculations by the Heritage Protection Office suggest. The office estimated the renovation costs to be a quarter of the building s market value, but the property is in an extremely bad state, pushing the prices much higher, he said.

WORLD POLITICS

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france, mosque