Hamodia- Mo Hill Says he is open to Zoning Changes as TR Council Puts off Votes on Houses of Worship till 2020
Toms River Council Vice President Maurice “Mo” Hill walked back his statements opposing zoning changes for houses of worship following an announcement by the Council’s President, George Wittmann, that no votes on the matter will be held this year, according to a report by the Patch. The move will push the issue, which has elicited much controversy, off until after new council members elected this coming November have taken their seats.
Toms River’s requirement for houses of worship to have a 10 acre plot have stood in the way of applications for shuls and mosques in the past.
According to documents revealed two weeks ago, under pressure from the federal Department of Justice (DOJ), town officials had agreed to pass laws that would loosen the requirements. At the same time the discussions with the DOJ were made public, a resolution to put some of the proposed changes in place made their way to a land use committee meeting and were promptly pulled by Mr. Wittmann who sits on the committee. Following the incident, both he and Mr. Hill voiced their unequivocal opposition to reducing the acreage requirements.
The proposal called for reducing the requirement to seven acres and two in the North Dover neighborhood which has seen a large influx of Orthodox families in recent years.
Now, Mr. Hill said that he would agree to certain adjustments if they would meet the final approval of the DOJ.
“I would never vote to change the 10-acre zoning to 7 acres unless the Justice Department said that was satisfactory,” he said in a statement send to the Patch. “I am not going to change the zoning to 7 acres and then have the DOJ come back and say you need to make it even lower. I think we got it right with 10 acres, but if making it 7 acres would prevent a lengthy and expensive court battle, the entire council would consider it, but not without legally binding assurances from the Attorney General. Two acres goes too far. If the DOJ insists upon that, let’s go to court and let a judge decide after we make our arguments.”
Mr. Wittmann reinforced his opposition to changes, but said the matter would be up to the next council, which will have at least three new members. Mr. WIttmann and Councilman Brian Kubiel are not seeking re-election and Mr. Hill is running for mayor. Several observers have claimed that the revelation of the proposal and records of discussions with the DOJ were a political stunt intended to hurt Mr. Hill’s campaign. (Hamodia
They need to be smart. If they would just base the size of the property on the number of seats the assembly room can hold and then require 1 parking spot for each 1 or 2 seats then the process will self regulate itself. With 35% ground coverage a 2 acre property (86,000sf) can have 30,000sf of impervious coverage. A parking space uses 300sf including drive areas. So do the math. The bigger the shul the more parking required the more acreage needed. If you want a shul to seat 200 you will need 60,000sf of parking and a 3-4 thousand sf building. Aproxi 5 acres of land.
ReplyDeleteThey shoul also address size of land for schools. 10 acres way to big say for a school with 200 kids. Parking only needed for teachers etc