BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
EDISON — It’s all about traffic, not religion.
That is the message township officials stressed when they passed a resolution at the March 10 Township Council meeting supporting township residents’ objections to an application to build a Hindu temple in South Plainfield, just over the municipal boundary line.
An application to build a single-story, 14,000-square-foot International Swaminarayan Satsang Organization (ISSO) house of worship on a 6.7-acre site on Fleet Avenue is pending before the South Plainfield Zoning Board. The site is currently zoned for light industrial use. Therefore, a variance is being sought in the neighboring town to allow the temple to be built in a zone where it is not a permitted use.
Nearby Edison residents in were upset by the prospect of the development.
The source of their angst: the belief that the temple, or any development at the site on Fleet Avenue, would wreak safety and traffic havoc in an otherwise sleepy suburban neighborhood.
Relieved by the council’s intent to pass the resolution "in support of the denial of the application [to build the temple] in South Plainfield," resident Irene Wall, who spearheaded the effort, said that the measure had been "a long time coming."
Understanding that the resolution cannot enact a zone change in another town, but can only express the opposition in Edison, Wall said her hope was that the show of support by the governing body in passing the resolution would impact the South Plainfield decision to "return to the safety of [our] neighborhood."
The only way to access the property is via Fleet Avenue. Various other streets sit on either side of the main artery and dead end. This places the burden of the traffic flow on Fleet and its peripheral streets, residents have said.
Should the variance be granted and the temple built, its worship hours would be 5-8 p.m. on Sundays for a congregation of about 150.
But, the ways and means of any type of worship are not the problem, officials said.
Its potential for negative impact on this one Edison neighborhood is the issue, Council President Robert Diehl said.
Reiterating Wall’s stance that traffic is the issue, Diehl said he wanted to "make it clear that [Edison’s governing body is] certainly not against anyone’s house of worship. This [resolution] is just [being passed] to stand by residents."
All the township has the jurisdiction to do in this case is show its support of the residents’ objections, officials said. No ordinance, which is a law passed relative to individual municipalities, can be passed in one town setting parameters in another.
So, in this case, "a resolution is the most we can do," Councilman Parag Patel said.
"It is the most powerful thing we can do … This is [in] another township," Patel added.
Wall said she feared that because a temple is proposed for the site, it would exempt the applicants from zoning restrictions, easing the application through in South Plainfield and placing safety on the back burner.
The support the resolution showed would bolster the importance of the safety issue, she said.
Since the area is already clogged with traffic, the thought of another development, whatever it may be, has residents thinking they will be held hostage in their own neighborhoods, Wall said.
"There comes a time when whatever the religious entity, it doesn’t matter who or what, has to pay attention to the safety of residents," Wall said. "I think in their zeal to get the property, they didn’t see that it was a bad spot.
"As it is, we have to find a way to get out to the A&P," she added.
Wall also said that there is work pending on a nearby bridge, which will compound traffic problems. She encouraged Edison officials to attend South Plainfield zoning meetings to put a face on the problem and pressure officials there.
Residents and the township engineer went to a zoning meeting in South Plainfield last week when the issue was due to be heard.