HILLSBOROUGH: Muslim Center denied locating in shopping center

Four of seven "yes" votes aren’t enough for variance approval

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Even with four of seven votes for approval, representatives of the Muslim Center of Somerset County were denied planning approval Wednesday, July 24, to locate a house of worship in a strip shopping center off Route 206.
   The center proposed converting 4,244 square feet in three units of the Worden and Green shopping center into a faith-based educational/religious facility.
   Houses of worship are not permitted in the neighborhood shopping district without a zoning use variance. The center received four yes votes to three no to allow the use of the building for a mosque, but Board of Adjustment cases require five affirmative votes for passage.
   The Muslim Center, a 20-year-old independent nonprofit institution, wanted to take a five-year lease on the property while it sought a place to build a permanent mosque in Hillsborough.
   A zoning variance, however, would have stayed with the property forever, unless the use was abandoned. Two board members cited that factor in their “no” votes.
   ”It’s temporary for you, but it’s not temporary for the town,” said Board Member John Stamler, saying he hoped the center found a place for a permanent home.
   Vice Chairwoman Helen “Chickie” Haines said she’d also like to see the center have a permanent home in the township.
   The concern is the zone and we can’t give you a five-year variance,” she said. “The permanency is a concern.”
   Afterwards, she said she hoped the Planning Board would reconsider ordinance barring religious groups from commercial zones.
   Arthur Skaar, attorney for the center, said in his closing comments that the Muslim Center had no intention to “hand off” a variance to another religious institution.
   Other board members saw the application as a chance to inject renewal into a tired shopping center, which is adjacent to the closed K-Mart store on southbound Route 206 between Valley and Triangle roads. There are an insurance agency, a self-service laundry business and an exercise facility in other units of the 23,000-square-foot strip center.
   Board member Frank Herbert moved acceptance, saying it would be a chance to improve “an eyesore building,” especially the garbage refuse container area and the detention swale on the southern and western sides of the building, respectively. Users of the mosque planned to use a rarely used parking and enter the building from the southern side.
   Chairwoman Marian Fenwick said she thought the center had made a “sincere effort to permanently locate in Hillsborough. She said, “This retail center has been a dive for a long time,” and didn’t see any immediate business prospects “to make it wonderful.”
   Mr. Herbert, Ms. Fenwick, Michael Volpe and Frank Valchek voted yes, and Mr. Stamler, Ms. Haines and Shawn Suraci voted no.
   Board Attorney Mark Anderson said four votes weren’t sufficient for approval, and Mr. Skaar gathered up his papers without comment and left with his clients in silence.
   The mosque would be the center of prayer and educational activities, including a Sunday school of 15-20 children ages 5-15.
No changes to the exterior of the building were proposed, with no new signs. ’’Daily prayer would be held at various hours, from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. depending on the day, season or holiday.
   The center would not have used any bells or sound-generating devices, nor would it have broadcast any recorded or live music, voices and sounds outside the building.
   There was discussion whether a mosque there would help or hurt efforts to entice a tenant in the adjacent vacant 63,500-square-foot K-Mart. Use of spaces in the strip center for a quiet use can “serve to lessen any perception of blight which vacant stores can tend to create,” Mr. Skaar wrote in the application.