The Jackson Township Zoning Board at their meeting tonight denied an application for a Shul looking to make minor variances, despite their argument that the usage would be beneficial for the area.
One zoning board member, James Hurley, who opposed the variances claimed that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, also known as RLUIPA, would not apply in this case.
The members of the zoning board are appointed by the town council and operates under the guidelines of the state Municipal Land Use Law.
This is the first Jackson Shul to come before the Zoning Board.
This is a developing story and will be updated
Inaccurate.
This is not the first Jackson Zoning Board shul application.
As previously reported at https://thelakewoodscoop.com/news/breaking-south-new-prospect-shul-application-in-jackson-receives-change-of-use-approval/, the Zoning Board last year granted a Use Variance to the South New Prospect Road shul.
I don’t know the details of this case, so my comment may not apply here, but in general, it’s a good idea not to issue variances. That’s how the Lakewood mess started!
Not quite. Unless you’re referring to Jews living instead of variances.
A few decades back, Jackson intentionally set the rules in such a way that it would be virtually impossible to build infrastructure for a Jewish community.
Additionally, you have the clear and present issue of selective enforcement where new developments being built by non-Jewish developers are allowed to build a community center, whereas developers who want to build for a Jewish community (also a non-Jewish developer) is not allowed to.
Which shul is this for?
The new normal over the last few years in Lakewood is that most people don’t fargin shuls or mosdos and hire lawyers to stop them or make it more difficult for them to build. There are various shuls and yeshivas being taken to court or just being given a hard time by the neighbors. I’m not taking a position on who is right as I don’t know the circumstances of each case . But why should Jackson be nicer to mosdos than frum Lakewood neighbors are ?
Because in Jackson we can play the “Anti-Semitism” card.
Jackson Township has almost the same zoning laws as all townships around Lakewood.
Look up the zoning in Manchester and Toms River
Royal grove shul was approved 2 years ago
Point is you only need 2 acres and a few more conditions to get approved for a shul, as long as you don’t need a variance it’s not that difficult