A Muslim group can move forward with plans to build a mosque in Culpeper after reaching an agreement in a religious discrimination lawsuit it filed against officials who had denied it a zoning permit.

The agreement closes a chapter on a case that the group framed as a fight for religious freedom but county officials cast as a routine zoning skirmish over a sewage permit.

[Muslim group sues Virginia county for denying mosque permit]

“We can finally move ahead and start building our mosque so we can fully meet the needs of our religious community,” Mohammad Nawabe, director of the Islamic Center of Culpeper, said in a statement. “Our members have lived in Culpeper County for decades, and all we have ever asked for is to be treated the same as everyone else.”

The settlement was announced Friday by Muslim Advocates, a California-based group that represented the center in the case.

The site where the Islamic Center of Culpeper’s mosque is to be built (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

The dispute began last year when the county denied the Islamic Center a permit to pump and haul away sewage on the rural site it purchased outside the town of Culpeper. The Justice Department filed a civil rights lawsuit, and the center followed with a lawsuit of its own this year.

The settlement agreement requires the county to pay the center $10,000 for its expenses. As part of the settlement, Culpeper County officials did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.

The county’s Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 3 Tuesday to approve the agreement.

Bill Chase, a board member who voted against the agreement and proposed a motion to deny the permit last April, said this week that he maintains that his decisions were based on the fact that the group did not meet the county’s requirements. Such permits are designed for situations where no other option exists.

“It had nothing to do with religion, it had nothing to do with faith, it had nothing to do with people — it was a piece of land without a building on it,” he said.

“We’ve never approved one like that,” he added. “Our policy was that pump-and-haul was to be used for emergencies only when a building was there, and there was a failing draining field — it was approved for a pump-and-haul for a temporary basis.”

[A small Virginia county put brakes on plans for a mosque. Was it discrimination?]

The center has noted that when the permit was denied in a 4-to-3 vote last year, the move was celebrated by the crowd in attendance as well as on anti-Muslim websites. Three of the board members who voted for the permit said they were barraged with calls and emails expressing concerns over Islamist terrorism.

The county continues to defend itself against the Justice Department lawsuit.

Federal officials said in December that by denying the permit, county officials violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. In an April 12 response to that lawsuit, the county said it “did not illegally discriminate against the ICC based on religion or any other prohibited basis.”

[Justice Dept. sues Virginia county over denial of permit to build mosque]

In the Justice Department case, the county said a Culpeper official met with an Islamic Center representative who said that another sewage system had been identified at the site. The representative said the system would cost between $20,000 and $25,000 and that the price was too high. Members of the Islamic Center currently worship in an empty building with no heat next to a car dealership owned by Nawabe.