A change in the traffic pattern on Route 522 paves way for mosque expansion, construction of Islamic school.
By: Paul Koepp
The Zoning Board of Adjustment paved the way July 19 for the Islamic Society of Central Jersey to build the infrastructure needed to expand its facilities at the intersection of Route 1 and Promenade Boulevard.
The ISCJ is proposing a new $19.8 million building for the Noor-Ul-Iman School that would accommodate 520 students. The plans also include an office building, a parking deck, and an expansion of the mosque.
The zoning board voted 6-1 to allow a left-turn entrance into the site for eastbound drivers on Promenade Boulevard, eliminating a condition the board had previously set stating that the entrance would be right-in and right-out only because of concerns about traffic patterns around the nearby intersection with Route 1.
However, the board also set a new condition that 100 new parking spaces must be created on the site before the left-turn entrance is built. This was in response to some zoning board members’ concerns that the township would grant the easements for the entrance without knowing whether all the planned improvements to the site would actually be built.
The zoning board also required an extension of the left-turn lane to prevent traffic from stacking in the path of trucks coming from the Kingston Trap Rock Quarry.
The state Department of Transportation ruled earlier this year that the left turn into the site would better fit the traffic patterns. There will also be two entrances on Route 1, according to the site plans.
"It was a great night," Imam Hamad Ahmed Chebli said Tuesday. "We are very, very happy with the friendship between us as the ISCJ and every (official) working in South Brunswick Township."
Residents of Richard Road and the Princeton Gate development complained at the meeting that people attending the ISCJ’s mosque and school have parked on their roads and cut through neighborhoods, causing what they said was a traffic mess.
The Township Council introduced an ordinance Tuesday authorizing the closure of Oxmoor Lane at Promenade Boulevard to keep drivers from cutting through Princeton Gate to turn around toward Route 1. A gate would be placed across the street that could be unlocked by emergency responders when necessary, according to the ordinance.
The ISCJ project, expected to cost over $30 million, will include 689 parking spaces, partly in a two-level, 52,950-square-foot parking deck. It also includes an expansion of the mosque to 10,700 square feet, the construction of a two-story, 103,805-square-foot building for the Noor-Ul-Iman School, and a burial preparation house.
Also planned is a 40,000-square-foot office building that would be rented to raise revenue. Earlier plans for about 30 units of senior housing on the north side of the site have been abandoned, according to township planners.
Imam Chebli said that money and land is available to construct the 100 parking spaces, and once the Promenade Boulevard entrance is under way, the members of the ISCJ will decide which part of the expansion plan should come next. The new school building would probably be the most pressing need, he said.

