Post Comment ROCKAWAY TWP. -- The planning board chairman confirmed Monday that he had received a letter from Christ Church objecting to additional parking restrictions imposed on its building plan.
The board, in approving the 2,512-seat megachurch plan last month, limited parking to 900 spaces.
Christ Church had proposed 1,370 spaces and Pastor David Ireland said afterward that he was caught off guard by the restriction.
Ireland said last Thursday that the church had written to the planning board, requesting reconsideration of a condition that he claimed could impede worshippers at the two Sunday services.
Though the board approved the building plan, along with more than two dozen conditions, in a 7-0 vote in October, some changes still could be made. The board still has to adopt a resolution formalizing the approval and the conditions.
Planning board Chairman Mort Dicker said that a vote on the resolution likely would take place in December.
Attorneys for the board and church will be weighing in on the language, including the conditions, he said.
Dicker, on Monday, defended the parking restriction. The church had testified that the township's parking ordinance would require only 837 spaces, he said.
The board's goal, Dicker said, was to reduce the amount of impervious coverage at the site.
"It's a very sensitive site," Dicker said of the 107-acre tract on Green Pond Road.
Dicker added that the church could come back and request the additional parking, should the need arise.
The church's chief operating officer, Rupert A. Hayles Jr., did not return a phone call for comment Monday.
The planning board's conditions -- most of which were noncontroversial and agreed to ahead of time by the church -- included a pending exemption from the state Highlands law.
A state Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman said Monday that a review is ongoing.
Dicker said he had received no additional notification about the church's federal lawsuit against the township, filed in April 2005. Christ Church has not said whether it will proceed.
Christ Church's building plan gained approval after public hearings spanning 34 months. http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061107/COMMUNITIES43/611070331
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Seems my response from two months ago fits perfectly well into this new fight.
The basics are quite simple, according to their expert on traffic flow we can expect an additional 800-1000 vehicles for each service held at Christ Church. Each car between 12-18 feet long, but for ease of mathematical equations I've rounded them off to an average of 15 feet long (average vehicle per edmunds.com web site). With a deceleration lane of approx. 200 feet long being built on the northbound side of GPR that will hold 16 cars at any given time. Now times that 15 foot long car by the 800-1000 vehicles that will be arriving at roughly a 15-25 minute interval. That is right folks, that is 12,000-15,000 feet worth of automobiles. With a mile being 5280 feet long, that is 2-3 miles worth of vehicles if you stack them up end to end (let us not forget the speeed limit on GPR and the safe traveling distance required by law between each car for every 10mph they are traveling). Now back to the discussion of traffic flow, with a 90 second interval for the proposed traffic light as reported by the CC hired traffic engineer, and approx. 750-800 feet to the parking structure, we can clearly see that there will be at least a 1 mile traffic back up from the entrance of 140 Green Pond Road southbound towards RT80 on the northbound side of GPR for at least 45 minutes prior to the start of services on any given weekend. How is this so, well, if you figure that with the normal traffic flow of GPR on Sunday plus the addition of 800-1000 extra automobiles and an average of 7-8 cars a minute being able to traverse the entrance of 140 GPR during that time, that it will take approximately 90-120 minutes for all of those cars to safely enter and find parking spaces within the paved parking area. Of course this does not factor in any people dropping off and picking up congregates, children, etc which would actually slow the process down even further. After the first service is over and the congregates are leaving while new ones will be arriving, the traffic congestion doubles for a period of at least an 1.5 hours to almost 2 hours of stop and go traffic. Again, I did not take into account the merge when GPR goes from 2 lanes down to 1 a 3/4 of a mile before the proposed deceleration lane.
I had to laugh at this comment in the story though,
"The church's chief operating officer, Rupert A. Hayles Jr., did not return a phone call for comment Monday."
A COO for a "church"? Give us a break.... Hey COO Hayles, better revise your business plan to reflect the impact 900 parking spaces will have on revenue. I have a feeling this business venture you and your buddy - CEO Ireland have embarked on will fold like a house of cards. Trends come and go. Soon the Megachrch trend will pass and folks will seek the comfort of smaller less corrupt houses of worship.
My analysis is very simple and correct. The planning board will approve whatever number of parking spaces that cc requests. That is because they are afraid of dealing with a minority owned, inner city business operating under the guise of a church.
They will be afraid of more lawsuits based on race and RLUIPA. And, a bunch of spineless cowards sit on RT's planning board.
Just watch! Don't be naive' again- - - you folks know that I am right.
"You talk without a hint of fact to back it up. Go back to trying to sell your castle, and we'll deal with CC."
Are you going to deal with it in the same manner in which you have been dealing with it thus far? ROTFL!!
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I called someone at ReMax recently. The agent told me not to even bother trying to sell it right now. He told me that between the market and the church, forget about it unless we want to completely dump the place.
So, do not tell us what to do. I will point out that I have been correct on every one of my prognostications thus far pertaining to cc and you have not been correct on anything. How does that feel?
So, you know how this one is going to turn out unless you guys want to keep on chasing them windmills.
In case you do not know, the PB will give Sir Ireland whatever he wants because they are a nothing but a bunch of wimps. And, it does not look like guys like you plan to do anything about it. You will probably vote the entire town council back into office again, right sir?
Hmm, because of the church you can't sell your house? What about the new house on GPR right before the church? That's under contract and it hasn't been for sale as long as yours. I wonder what the real problem is.
last I counted, there is no DEP permit to build - there is however an office complex owned by mr liarland and staffed by about 20 workers. Correct me if I am wrong?
"Hmm, because of the church you can't sell your house? What about the new house on GPR right before the church? That's under contract and it hasn't been for sale as long as yours. I wonder what the real problem is."
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The real problem is price. If we are willing to sell it for the same amount of money that we paid for it 19 years ago, it will sell given enough time.
Is that all that you would expect from your real estate investment Mr. Thinker, sir?
The new house sold for more than what you're selling your house for. So what's the problem? Plus it has a horrible driveway. Must be something more to this.
Yeah thinker, I am sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that this township is allowing a 20,000 person inner city gigachurch to be constructed right at the end of the street where we live.
It is probably something more to do with the color of the tile floors. Yeah, that's the ticket- - - it's the color of the tiles in the house.
And back to the topic at hand. So what do we think, should Rockaway impose a restriction as to how many cars can be backed up safely on Green Pond Road (a major north/south roadway) without causing a detriment to the citizens of Rockaway, NJ? When does this potential two mile backup (bringing it all the way back to RT80) become a health and safety issue? Agilent/HP never backed up on GPR, never!!!!!!!!!! Wonder why the traffic experts never came out and stated there was going to be a severe overflow problem on GPR two to three times a day during the services? Wonder what will happen when my prediction is found to be true?
I am sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that this township is allowing a 20,000 person inner city gigachurch to be constructed right at the end of the street where we live. The new house is right on GPR and will never be able to get out of their driveway on Sundays. So what's your point?
Obviously, Mr Bill, no one seems to care. Those who travel GPR know what a backup this will cause. They had car counters on GPR a couple of times, but I never heard anything about the results. Our only hope is the cc people will get fed up with sitting in bumper to bumper traffic and will give up on cc. I'm also counting on the pb knowing that this condition of limiting parking spaces would be not taken lightly by the rev and they are prepared to back up their decision. Or am I giving them more credit than they deserve?
If ireland sees circus fans backed up on GPR making it hard for him to make the money that he desires, he will sue the County and the Township for not providing the appropriate road widening to accomodate him. If that is not done for him, he will scream bigotry and racism and demand proper accomodation and thus, shall prevail.
You can expect to see GPR becomming 4 lanes from Rt 80 to the Circus on Meriden. And, the road widening will be paid for by everyone but the guy that will have caused the problem.
ireland knows that there will be a traffic problem, Duh. He also knows that he will not have to pay to fix it and that it WILL BE fixed. Come on folks.
I think you guys are losing sight of who you should be mad at. We may each have different ideas of what should have been done, but that doesnt matter at this point. We all have to survive from this point on and I agree that those who were responsible for selling us down the proverbial river (soon to be polluted by CC) need to pay. Not sure Rat, but I think its another year or two before our local elections. I have been a Rep most of my life, but maybe its time RT becomes a Dem town.
When the Rockaway Township Planning Board approved plans for Christ Church to build a house of worship on Green Pond Road, it did so with more than two dozen conditions. There was nothing secretive about the conditions, which were publicly read and spelled out by township Mayor Louis Sceusi, who also sits on the planning board.
Church officials had no public objection to any of the conditions when their plan was approved at the Oct. 16 meeting.,
But they do now. The church is asking the board to reconsider a condition limiting parking to 900 spaces. That's more than the 837 spaces required by the township standard, but less than the 1,370 spaces the church originally sought.
The resolution approving the church has to be "memorialized," which means it has to be voted on again in December. So, changing it is possible. But we don't think the board should. Considering the church's almost three-year struggle to get its project approved, we wonder why the church is raising another issue after the fact. If it was unsatisfied with the parking condition, church officials should have questioned it at the public meeting.
The article says "posted from the daily record newroom". Is there any news here or was this from the editorial page? Did I read it correctly? Is the daily record actually opining contrary to the church's wishes for the first time in the history of this saga? What's that about? Any thoughts?
