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Rockaway Twp. planners' lawyer will ask church to drop lawsuit

Tuesday, April 26, 2005
BY PAULA SAHA Star-Ledger Staff

The attorney for Rockaway Township's planning board said he will ask Christ Church to voluntarily dismiss its federal religious discrimination lawsuit against the board and the township.

If the church declines to dismiss the suit, board attorney William Dimin said, "when the case is ultimately dismissed, I'm going to ask the court to impose costs and fees against (the church)."

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Dimin yesterday called the suit an attempt at "coercion and intimidation," and said he believed the church had "jumped the gun" with its lawsuit because the planning board had not yet ruled on the church's application to build a religious campus in town.

"The matter must be ripe for judicial intervention," he said. "The federal courts have universally stated that federal courts should not get embroiled in land-use controversies until they are completed by the appropriate governmental agency. In this case, it's our board."

Dimin said he would be sending a letter to the church's attorneys this week saying the case was "premature" and asking for them to drop the lawsuit.

Marc Weinstein, a spokesman for the church, said the church had no plans to dismiss any legal action against the township.

"The church is going to continue to seek legal redress for violations of federal and state laws," Weinstein said.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in federal court in Newark, alleges that township officials "improperly thwarted" the church's plans for a spiritual campus in Rockaway by putting up "discriminatory and improper barriers" to the fulfillment of the church's religious mission.

The township, the planning board and its individual members, the council and its individual members and the environmental commission and its chair are all named as defendants in the lawsuit.

The evangelical congregation has been seeking site plan approval from the Rockaway Township Planning Board since December 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.

Weinstein said yesterday that the church has never said it believes the planning board would rule against it. Rather, he said, "We have always hoped the planning board would do the prudent thing, that is to approve the application despite the litigation."

The lawsuit, he said, was filed particularly because of an ordinance passed by the township and approved by the planning board that defines churches as conditional uses.

"That ordinance could jeopardize the project as it is submitted," Weinstein said.

Dimin has said no one knows yet what effect the new ordinance would have on the project.

"We don't even know that yet from our planner," he said, adding that he was hopeful to have that by the next meeting. "The board's not going to be intimidated by their threats, and that's all this is, nothing more than a threat."

Late yesterday evening, Weinstein said the church, at the township's request, put together a document analyzing the ordinance's effects on their project, and attempted to share that with the township. But their efforts, Weinstein said, were rebuffed.

"The church," he said, "did everything possible to avoid this situation."

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