This was in the Citizen....
We all know how biased this "woman" is...but the last 3 paragraphs really underline how intimately bonded she feels to this topic.

I wonder if she has taken a liking to Mr. Charisma.

She needs to learn how to count, and should review the definion of the word "Significant". I counted pretty much the same attendance from the last meeting at Knolls.

I am curious how denominational this church is, has to do with the issues we have a problem with.

I'm wondering how Ireland caught the religious bug affects the size and cope problems we see???

I'm wondering if he had his vision before he recieved all his education on group leadership???

Christ Church will stay at Planning Board, but Highlands bill prompts delay for review
CLAUDETTE LEMERDY , Contributing Writer
06/23/2004
ROCKAWAY TWP – The Planning Board will retain jurisdiction of the Christ Church application to build a campus on the Agilent property on Green Pond Road, Board Attorney William Dimin said on Monday night, but the church application will be carried to September while the township looks at whether a revision of the Highlands preservation legislation that includes the property has any effect on the plan.

When the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act was approved by the state Legislature on Thursday, June 10, the final version of the map included the 108 acres in what is known as “the core area” which will have development strictly overseen by a 15 member state council that has yet to be established.


Advertisement

Marc Weinstein, a spokesman for Christ Church, said by phone on Friday, June 11, the church application is not a development of a virgin site and that while church officials are prepared to make some modifications to the proposal, they do not see the new legislation as detrimental to their plans.

During previous meetings on the application, Dimin said he would consider recommending that Christ Church be referred to the zoning Board of Adjustment pending the outcome of further testimony as to whether Christ Church fit the definition of a church.

Churches are permitted in the Office Business Research Laboratory (OBRL) zone, on which the Agilent site is situated, but opponents of the church say the scope of the project is too large, and the size of the congregation puts the church outside the bounds of what one would consider a church.

At the May 19 hearing on the application, Rockaway Township Planner Joseph Burgis testified Christ Church is a church as far as the definition in the township zoning defines one..

Additionally, during the March 11 hearing on the Christ Church application, Peter Steck, a licensed planner and civil engineer from Maplewood, had told the board it could not impose conditions on the applicant with regard to the church’s growth because the imposition of such conditions would be what Steck called an “illegal plan.”

Steck also told the board at the March 11 meeting, “You can’t invent zoning conditions as you go along. You have to stand by your regulations.”

Despite telling the board they could not invent conditions for the applicant at this stage in the process, township officials encouraged their attorney, Edward Buzak to work with Burgis to change the ordinance which could affect the Christ Church application.

During a Township Council meeting last month, one council member questioned Buzak about whether he and Burgis had worked together to draft any changes to the ordinance, by saying, “Do we need to go into closed session to discuss the outcome of interpretation of the ordinance from last week?”

“No,” Buzak had responded, “Because it isn’t prepared yet.

And during a conversation by phone last month, Burgis said he would work with Buzak to review the whole section of the ordinance regulating all institutional uses.

“The whole way the municipality regulates institutional uses is insufficient - there are very few regulatory controls associated with institutional uses,” said Burgis.

“The standards that it (the ordinance) imposes are not adequate to properly regulate institutional uses,” Burgis added.

The township ordinance committee may discuss recommending changes to the same ordinance, as well, according to Councilman Gene Sheninger, who is a member of the ordinance committee.

Christ Church may have to make changes to its application which presently includes plans for a 3,000 seat sanctuary, recreational facilities which include a gym and ball fields and will be made available to township residents, and a grade K-5 Christian elementary school.

Despite some changes that would have to be made to the planned facilities, the Rev. David Ireland does not envision making major changes to the planned sanctuary which would better accommodate his 5,000 member congregation.

The meeting was held at Copeland Middle School and was attended by a significantly smaller crowd than had attended previous hearings about Christ Church and members of the audience were told the next hearing on the application will be held at 8 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 13, also at Copeland Middle School and hearings on the application may continue through January 2005.

Ireland is still preaching five sermons every Sunday at the 25,000 square foot cathedral in Montclair, and he had described his heavy preaching schedule as taxing to his body.

Additionally, Ireland’s congregants have to park blocks away from the church in Montclair, due to inadequate parking at that facility.

Additional space is also needed for the planned K-5 Christian school, as well as to accommodate the church staff, many of which have to work off-site in a facility in Verona, according to Ireland, who indicated at last night’s meeting he will continue to believe his God for success in bringing his church to its new home on the former Agilent property.

In a conversation last July, Ireland had said, “We are a major church, an evangelical Christian congregation and we believe in the salvation of sinners by grace, through repentance and faith in the perfect and sufficient work of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary. Although Christ Church is evangelical, it is non-denominational, having members from many different Christian denominations.

Ireland had said he found God on July 6, 1982, after asking Christ to come into his heart, to see if God was real. That prayer changed his life, and led Ireland to become an ordained minister whose church began with only a handful of people, but grew to 5,000.
©Recorder Newspapers 2004