Congregation Kollel says it met with hostility from the public and township officials when it presented its plans.
NEWARK -- An Orthodox Jewish congregation has filed a federal lawsuit against Howell Township and its zoning board of adjustment, saying the township's denial of its plan to build a religious education center was motivated by religious "hostility."
Congregation Kollel and its land holding company filed the complaint Tuesday.
The congregation, the lawsuit says says, wants to build a classroom building for teen-aged and young adult males studying to become future Orthodox leaders, a dormitory and townhouses for faculty.
However, actions taken before and after the Kollel bought the property were designed specifically to prevent Orthodox facilities from being built in the township, the lawsuit says.
Township Attorney McKenna Kingdon did not immediately return a request for comment.
The new lawsuit is at least the fourth active case involving a religious group suing a New Jersey community over restrictive land-use rules. An Islamic Society is suing Bernards Township over its rejection of a proposed mosque, a decision that has attracted the attention of the U.S. Justice Department. Additionally, a Jewish community is suing Toms River over its rejection of a religious center and another is suing Ocean Township over its rejection of a proposed Yeshiva.
The Kollel's lawyer, Christopher K. Costa, says in the lawsuit that the property the congregation bought last year on Ford Road was, at the time, in a zoning district that permitted educational facilities. The tract, at 344 Ford Road, is 10.1 acres, the lawsuit says.
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Howell Township Council in May of that year revised land-use requirements that "severely restricted" where schools could be located -- a move motivated by "animus toward ultra-Orthodox Jews," it says.
Among other things, it says, the revamped ordinance required new schools to provide New Jersey Department of Education-approved curricula, which the religious school could not.
Then, in Jauary 2016, the township removed "educational facilities" from the zoning classification that covered the Ford Road property "specifically to target Orthodox Jews in general and the plaintiffs in particular," the lawsuit says.
Since the Kollel's application had been submitted before the zoning change, it says, the prior version of the law applied, and it should have qualified as a permitted "institutional building complex."
Howell zoning officials ruled that the application did not meet zoning requirements, and the congregation appealed for a zoning variance, the suit says.
In hearings in December and February, "the board and its professionals were irrationally hostile" to the plan, it says, debating whether the facility was an impermissible synagogue or a multi-family housing project.
The township then rejected the proposal, saying it was a school for "sectarian instruction," had dormitories also not allowed by the zoning, and lacked a state-approved curriculum.
The Kollel lawsuit says the application should not have been considered as a school since it would not have provided state-approved curricula.
Throughout the process, the applicants faced hostility from the community, citing comments on social media and the appearance of "Howell Strong" yard signs to discourage property sales to Orthodox Jews, it says.
The 11-count suit cites the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Fair Housing Act, the state constitution in seeking to void the township's land use ordinances; overturn the application's denial; prohibit new efforts to overburden religious exercise; and damages and costs.
Tim Darragh may be reached at tdarragh@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @timdarragh. Find NJ.com on Facebook.