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Opponents of Christ Church's plans to move to Rockaway Township are charging that there are discrepancies between what the church is telling the town about the project and what it told the state when it applied for an exemption to the Highlands Act.

One of the documents the church submitted to the state -- labeled a "Comparison of Sanitary Wastewater Generation" -- says, among other things, that there will be 250 people at the church between 5 and 9 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, said Lisa Salberg, one of the co-founders of the citizens group Voices of Rockaway Township.

Opponents of Christ Church's plans to move to Rockaway Township are charging that there are discrepancies between what the church is telling the town about the project and what it told the state when it applied for an exemption to the Highlands Act.

One of the documents the church submitted to the state -- labeled a "Comparison of Sanitary Wastewater Generation" -- says, among other things, that there will be 250 people at the church between 5 and 9 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, said Lisa Salberg, one of the co-founders of the citizens group Voices of Rockaway Township.

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But Salberg and others contend that those numbers are not reflected in testimony by a traffic expert before the planning board.

"Either they were incorrect in their application to the DEP, or they're incorrect to the planning board," Salberg said. "That is a pretty big piece of information to get wrong."

"They got caught being less than honest with somebody," Salberg said.

Marc Weinstein, a spokesman for Christ Church, said yesterday the allegations of inconsistencies had not yet been proven. But, Weinstein added, if there was some error, the church would correct it.

The 5,000-member Christ Church, now based in Montclair, is seeking site plan approval for a complex on the former Agilent Technologies headquarters in Rockaway Township. The proposed complex would include a fellowship hall, a school and a fitness center.

The application has sparked intense opposition from residents who feel the proposed religious complex is too large for the site and will create traffic and environmental problems.

The Agilent property is part of the 395,000-acre protection zone created by the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act. The law is meant to protect the most vital watershed lands in a region that supplies drinking water to half the state, and largely restricts any major development in the area. The state Department of Environmental Protection granted the church an exemption from the act last September.

The issue was raised at Monday night's planning board meeting by planning board member and Rockaway Township Mayor Louis Sceusi. Sceusi said yesterday he obtained the document with the figures from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

"It raises a whole myriad of issues," Sceusi said yesterday. "All I know is there's a discrepancy. I don't know why or if it was a mistake or if it was intentional."

William Dimin, the planning board attorney, said the discrepancies were probably just an error. "I don't believe for one moment that they did anything in a deceptive way," Dimin said. "I think it's a situation where one expert isn't speaking to another expert."

He said the board was still in the process of questioning the church's traffic engineer and there were still "a lot of issues left to resolve."

The next planning board meeting will be May 2 at 8 p.m. at the Rockaway Township Municipal Building.

Paula Saha covers The Rockaways. She can be reached at psaha@starledger.com or (973) 539-7910.