The size of an addition that a Freehold Township resident wants to build on his home should be enough for the Zoning Board of Adjustment to reject the application.
Other questions that surround the plan need not be addressed by the board. Specifically, there is no question that Rabbi Avram Bernstein is conducting religious services in his home on Stillwells Corner Road, and there is nothing to prevent him from doing so.
The township, in fact, allows worshipers who are visiting Bernstein to park in the municipal building parking lot so they may walk to his home where the prayer service is held. Bernstein has not been issued a summons, nor should he be, for conducting the services in his home.
But the addition he is proposing to build — including a 32-by 41-foot great room, an additional kitchen and a half-bathroom on the main floor, and a 35-by-47-foot room and two half-bathrooms on the lower level — is larger than the 2,500-square-foot home.
The question of whether the construction of an addition would effectively turn this home into a house of worship — and it certainly appears that it would — is a moot point. The size of the addition would change the nature of the neighborhood where the home is located and should be rejected by the board.