Rockaway Twp. puts new limits on churches

Ordinance forces Christ Church to reduce proposed size of its buildings, omit parking deck

By Rob Jennings, Daily Record

ROCKAWAY TWP. -- An expected courtroom showdown between Rockaway Township and Christ Church of Montclair took a giant step closer Tuesday night when the township council approved a zoning amendment affecting the proposed mega-church building plan on Green Pond Road.

The ordinance was adopted by a 6-0 vote, with two council members abstaining and one absent. Approximately 50 people were in the municipal hearing room when the council voted shortly after 9 p.m.

Though many in attendance were church opponents and had urged the ordinance's adoption, there was no cheering.

"Thank you for the hard work on the ordinance. We appreciate everything you've done," Lisa Salberg, co-founder of a group opposing the church building plan, told the council prior to its vote.

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A lawyer for Christ Church also addressed the council and charged that the new ordinance "reflects an over-arching purpose of keeping Christ Church out of Rockaway Township."

The attorney, Michael Chagares, charged that the ordinance violated the 5,000-member church's religious liberties rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

Council members did not directly respond, but defended the ordinance as a necessary clarification of guidelines governing conditional uses, such as churches, that the township's planner and others criticized as too vague during planning board testimony on Christ Church's plan.

"We had to -- had to -- change our ordinance," Councilman Eugene Sheninger, the amendment's sponsor, said in alluding to a court ruling stipulating greater specificity in statutes governing conditional uses.

The new ordinance also will implement requirements consistent with toughened state storm water regulations and the new Highlands law, which strictly limits development in a 395,000-acre preservation zone that includes the proposed 107-acre church site.

Under the time-of-decision rule, the ordinance will immediately apply to Christ Church's proposal, which awaits a 13th planning board hearing later this month.

The ordinance will not necessarily force Christ Church to shelve its planned 2,512-seat sanctuary or private K-5 school, but it might result in the elimination of a fitness center and reduce the capacity of a 600-seat fellowship hall.

Christ Church also will have to forgo building a parking deck at the former Agilent Technologies site

Chagares read to the council two letters from another Christ Church attorney, Wendy Berger, and the Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund -- which has promised to represent the church in any court battle.

Chagares, reading from the letters, asserted that the new ordinance "would not withstand a challenge in court." He called it the "latest in a long pattern of conduct" aimed at blocking the church building plan.

There were murmurs in the audience when he implored the council to "cease its campaign to keep Christ Church out of Rockaway Township."

Salberg and township environmental commission chairman Pat Matarazzo spoke on behalf of the ordinance.

"It will help us comply with what we are required to do by the state of New Jersey," said Matarazzo, who recused himself from a parallel inquiry by the environmental commission into the church building plan last fall after attending a fundraiser for Salberg's group, Voices of Rockaway Township.

Afterward, church spokesman Marc Weinstein said the church would review its options.

"We believe the council made a serious mistake tonight," Weinstein said.

Weinstein declined to say whether the church would sue, but added that "it's unfortunate that the residents of Rockaway Township will suffer at the hands of a few special interests who are opposed to the church."

The Christ Church plan has been a lightning rod from local criticism since shortly after the church's $14 million deal with Agilent was announced in the summer of 2003.

Residents have charged that the church's plan would worsen traffic, strain the township's infrastructure, remove a large parcel from the tax rolls and hurt an environmentally sensitive location.

The church has suggested that prejudice against the mostly black, evangelical Christian church is a factor, and noted that the building plan includes a cleanup of contaminants already at the site.

 

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Why the f--k does anyone who lives in our wonderful town purchase this paper? Makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Please advise.