By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
ROBBINSVILLE — The Planning Board has unanimously approved a proposal for a five-building Hindu worship complex after an extended presentation that took two board meetings.
The board held a special meeting Oct. 29, which finished a presentation that began a week earlier and also saw the public hearing and vote on the proposal.
BAPS, a nonprofit Hindu group, is slated to develop 37 acres of a 102.5-acre property at Main Street and Route 130. Construction would take place in five phases over five to seven years, and leave 77.6 acres open for green space.
The organization has six other temples in New Jersey, though none of them is a traditional structure like the one approved in Robbinsville.
Planning Board member and Township Administrator Mary Caffrey asked the group to hire police to direct traffic away from the village of Windsor and back onto Route 130 when they expect to have peak attendance, something BAPS agreed to. Her request came in response to village residents who feared that those headed to the temple would try to avoid Route 130, and in the process cause a traffic jam.
Windsor resident Cathy Lubbe, of South Main Street, also emphasized the importance of keeping the village true to its historic character.
”The view coming from Church Street should remain the same,” she said. “You should see the church off to the left, and it should not become overcome by a temple structure in the distance. That is why it’s on the National (Historic) Register.”
Officials said the complex will be hidden from that angle.
A number of Hindu residents spoke out in support of the project coming to Robbinsville. Among them was Purvi Patel, who was born in India but has spent most of her life in the United States. She said she learned to read and write Hindi from a BAPS temple in Chicago.
”I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “It is a great project. BAPS is well known, well organized, I would be happy to have them here.”
She added that any traffic from a religious center would be better than the alternatives. “In Robbinsville I would rather have a religious center than a warehouse. What are we going to have? Eighteen-wheelers?”
Ragini “Regina” Patel, of Sundew Way, asked the board to approve the complex to help her reconnect with her native culture.
”I welcome something like BAPS on the perspective that I would like to give my children a way of educating them in the Hindu culture,” she said. “I’ve lived so much of my life here, but at the same item I would like to embrace my Hindu culture and my heritage. I do appreciate the concerns of the Windsor residents; I would have the same concerns if I lived in that area.
”I totally appreciate that and I hope the BAPS center and the township can work out something that is agreeable and would meet the needs and concerns of the citizens, and at the same time also serve the needs of the Indian and South Asian community in the area.”
At the end of the public forum, Birju Ringwala, of Amberfield Road, who graduated from the Sharon School and Lawrence High School and is now a medical student, gave a younger perspective on the need for a temple.
”Growing up in this township, one thing you could always feel missing that I saw my other friends had was some kind of culture connection, religious connection,” he said. “I had Jewish friends who were learning to read Hebrew for their bar mitzvahs, but I had that missing in the sense of the temples that were closest to us were an hour away, at least, and you couldn’t always do that.
”Things had to give way because you were so far away… In terms of what (building this) would do for people who are practicing Hindus, it would be one of the most generous things that could happen.”
Ms. Caffrey cited testimony such as Mr. Ringwala’s as a reason she voted to approve the complex.
”This has really been missing for what is clearly a growing part of our population here in the area,” she said. “This was more than just a Planning Board application.”

