Kala Kachmar

@NewsQuip

A discrimination lawsuit filed against Howell Township by an Orthodox Jewish group seeking to build a religious school with dormitories is on hold while a federal judge determines whether to allow the case to proceed.

The dispute concerns whether Howell’s zoning officer and zoning board improperly rejected an application for an educational facility at 344 Old Ford Road, according to the May 5 lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey.

The lawsuit alleges the denial was “motivated by hostility toward ultra-Orthodox Jews.”

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The applicant and plaintiff, the Lakewood-based Congregation Kollel, proposed a 17,240-square-foot classroom building, a 19,000-square-foot dormitory building and seven two-story townhouses on about 10 acres of land, according to the lawsuit. The school would house about 140 male students between 14- and 22-years-old, as well as the families of faculty who would be living in the townhouses.

The Kollel operates a higher Talmudic academy for the training of rabbinical judges on Forest Avenue in Lakewood.

The suit alleges that the township and the zoning board violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the Fair Housing Act, the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, New Jersey’s Municipal Land Use Law, and the state’s law against discrimination.

The claims seeks a reversal of the decision, compensatory damages, court costs and attorney fees.

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The facts:

On Aug. 15, 2015 Congregation Kollel submitted a land use permit application and concept plan to the zoning officer at the time, Christian Jackson, who is no longer with the town.

On Aug. 31, 2015 Jackson rejected the application on the grounds that while educational facilities are permitted in the zone the land is in, student and faculty housing is not.

He also ruled that only one building was allowed in the zone; not three.

On Sept. 15, 2015 the group filed an appeal and an application for a land use variance with Howell’s Zoning Board.

The board denied the appeal after two hearings. About a week before the variance application was supposed to be heard, Congregation Kollel filed the lawsuit on May 2.

In July, the township filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Both parties are awaiting the judge’s decision.

The motion to dismiss was filed on the grounds that the case is not “ripe” to be heard because the plaintiff never finished the variance application, court records show.

The pending motion doesn’t speak to the merits of the case, said Ron Cucchiaro, a land use attorney representing Howell Township.

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“One of the possibilities is the zoning board would have granted the use variance. In that (situation), there would be no case” Cucchiaro said. “If the zoning board decided not to grant it, there would have been the hearing, testimony and records for review.”

Cucchiaro said there are a lot of issues with Congregation Kollel’s definition of terms like “educational facility,” which according to state statute excludes religious organizations.

“The problem is they’ve made a lot of different arguments and they haven’t made them consistently,” he said.

Christopher Costa, a Hamilton-based attorney representing Congregation Kollel, said they didn’t go through with the variance application because they believed the board was wrong to deny the appeal in the first place.

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Since Howell’s township council never defined “educational facility,” it had no grounds to deny the application, Costa said. A state definition includes dormitories and student housing as part of an educational facility, he said.

Costa also said the law allows institutional complexes, which include private schools, to have more than one building, which is one of the bases on which the application was denied.

“This is a Hasidic Jewish school that’s being proposed, and our belief is that there is a desire to prevent such schools from being established in Howell Township,” Costa said. “We believe that the reason for denial is at least partly based on discrimination.”

Costa said the township passed an ordinance in January that removes “educational facilities” as one of the uses in the zone in question, which is agricultural rural estate or ARE-2.

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According to the town’s code, the zone is meant to serve as a buffer to more developed zones to help preserve Howell’s rural character.

The principle use is for passive and active public recreation, like athletic fields. Conditional uses include houses of worship, solar energy generation facilities and community housing for the developmentally disabled or victims of domestic violence as long as there are between 6 and 15 occupants.

“Everything is in a holding pattern right now until the court issues a decision,” Cucchiaro said. “These are complex Constitutional issues, so I expect the court would take its time to be deliberative.”

Kala Kachmar: 732-643-4061; kkachmar@gannettnj.com.