A public hearing on an applicant’s proposal to build a high school for Orthodox Jewish girls will resume in front of the Jackson Zoning Board of Adjustment in April.
Residents from Jackson and Lakewood gathered at the Jackson Memorial High School auditorium on Feb. 5 to listen to testimony and comment on Rabbi Ephraim Birnbaum’s proposal to construct the Oros Bais Yaakov High School at 38 Cross St., Jackson.
The proposal requires a special needs variance from the zoning board because a high school is not a permitted use in the residential zone at that location, which is at the border of Jackson and Lakewood.
Plans call for building a 35,000-square-foot school on a 7.5-acre lot. The applicant has testified that the school would eventually educate 400 girls in grades nine through 12. Students from any municipality would be eligible to attend the school.
Attorney Ron Gasiorowski has been hired by a group of residents who call themselves the Jackson Citizens Defense Fund. The residents are objecting to the application. Gasiorowski had the opportunity to cross-examine the applicant’s professionals.
Attorney Raymond Shea represents Birnbaum and addressed some of the issues residents have raised during previous hearings.
Chief among the concerns addressed by Shea was the potential impact the high school could have on local traffic, as well as the busing arrangement that would bring the high school’s student body, which would be predominantly from Lakewood, into Jackson.
Shea said changes have been made to the application in order to implement suggestions from the board’s professionals. These include the widening of the street.
Shea said traffic engineer John Rea, who has testified on behalf of the applicant, requested accident data from the Jackson Police Department that spanned the last four years.
According to the data, 19 accidents occurred at the corner of Route 528 and Cross Street. Shea said all 19 accidents were the result of driver inattention and were not related to traffic volume at that location. In previous hearings, Rea said the high school would use about nine full-size school buses each day.
Shea noted that, in accordance with state law, the Lakewood School District would pay for the buses that would bring Lakewood children to the school in Jackson.
Shea said the discussion about busing students to schools outside of the town in which they live prompted him to look into the busing practices of the Jackson School District.
According to his correspondence with school district Business Administrator Michelle Richardson, Shea said Jackson residents’ school taxes pay for 104 children who live in Jackson to be bused to schools in Lakewood every year.
“Everybody is treated equally, Christians and Jews alike, transporting students in and out of this township,” Shea said. “It is a recognized policy that was adopted and legalized in 1941 and it has been that way [ever since].”
In addition to the Jackson children who are transported to schools in Lakewood, Shea said more than 130 children who live in Jackson are bused to schools founded on other faiths in Toms River, Red Bank and Holmdel.
“I remembered my own children in Jackson and where they were bused. I am a Catholic and my kids went to Catholic schools,” Shea said.
Another concern among residents was the potential impact the high school could have on well water and septic systems, since most homes in that area of Jackson are not connected to public water and sewer service.
Although the applicant’s plan to drill into a deeper aquifer in order to avoid residential well systems remains intact, Shea said the project has been altered to eliminate the phasing of the septic system.
Originally, a septic tank that would have processed 1,900 gallons of sewage per day was intended for the first phase of the building, which would accommodate about 200 students.
The second phase would have involved the installation of a septic system that would have been able to handle 4,000 gallons of sewage a day for about 400 students.
Instead, Shea said, the applicant will attempt to obtain a special permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection that “allows increased flows into a septic system based on a special design.”
“It is the same permit we got for the Jackson Premium Outlets, which is open seven days a week and serves more than 15,000 people on the weekend, [compared to] 400 students,” Shea said.
As it stands, the project’s septic system would process 4,250 gallons of waste a day.
Ultimately, Shea and Birnbaum stood by their assertion that the proposed high school represents an inherent beneficial use to the Jackson community.
Residents disagreed with that assertion.
“I do question the integrity of this application,” Elenor Hannum said. “There is absolutely no regard for the community or the neighborhood.”
Birnbaum said he believes the education provided by the high school will not only benefit the students and their families, but the nation as a whole.
“The graduates of Oros Bais Yaakov will go on to medical fields, legal, business administration … fields that will be inherently beneficial to Ocean County, New Jersey and the entire United States,” Birnbaum said. “The community at large and America as a whole benefit from educating girls with a very high level of education.”
The public hearing on the proposed high school will continue at the zoning board’s April 2 meeting.