'Mega' church files suit against Rockaway Twp. Saturday, April 16, 2005 BY PAULA SAHA Star-Ledger Staff

Christ Church, the 5,000-member Montclair congregation that is trying to relocate to Morris County, filed a lawsuit late yesterday afternoon accusing Rockaway Township officials of religious discrimination.

The suit alleges that township officials "improperly thwarted" the church's plans to build a campus in Rockaway by putting up "discriminatory and improper barriers" to the church's religious mission.

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"There's violation of state and federal laws," said Marc Weinstein, a church spokesman who said the suit was filed at 3:30 p.m. yesterday in federal court in Newark. "Given the circumstances surrounding this matter, we had no other choice but to take legal action."

In addition to Rockaway Township, the lawsuit names as defendants the mayor, the council, the planning board and the environmental commission.

Mayor Louis Sceusi said he was not surprised by the lawsuit, but said he thought it was premature since the hearings were not finished and the planning board had not ruled on the church's application. "I believe that we have treated their application as we would any other application."

The evangelical congregation has been seeking site plan approval from the Rockaway Township Planning Board since December of 2003. It wants to build a complex at the former Agilent Technologies Headquarters on Green Pond Road that includes a sanctuary for more than 2,500 people, a K-5 school, a fellowship hall, and audio/visual studios for television and radio ministry.

Even before the church's first planning board hearing, however, residents organized opposition to the church's plan, calling it an environmental nightmare. The Sierra Club has decried an exemption to the Highlands Act obtained by the church. The Agilent property is part of the core land in which the Highlands Act limits development.

The lawsuit alleges a "campaign against Christ Church" that includes a series of hearings by the planning board to determine whether a mega church is really a church, the distribution of disinformation by defendants and their allies, a debate over whether to take the Agilent site over by eminent domain for a school, "ever-changing" environmental standards and finally, an ordinance that "discriminates against houses of worship."

The first count of the lawsuit accuses the defendants of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal law passed in part to prohibit local governments from making zoning decisions that restrict religious freedom.

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

-- Edited by Rational at 02:31, 2005-04-16