Republican gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino yesterday said that if elected, he would use eminent domain to keep a controversial mosque from being built near Ground Zero.

“I say it is disrespectful to the thousands who died on 9/11 and their families, insulting to the thousands of troops killed or injured in the ensuing wars, and an affront to the American people — and it must be stopped,” he said.

Meanwhile, a plan to build a mosque on Staten Island was quashed yesterday when a Catholic parish decided not to sell an abandoned convent to a Muslim organization.