A large crowd of residents came out once again on Monday night to oppose an application for a 200,000+ sq foot school campus with 4 schools for a total of 2,500 students on Chandler Road and Jackson Mills Road.
As Jackson Township's Planning Board had a long agenda and the first application on the agenda took longer than anticipated, the Board adjourned the Chandler Road school hearing to November 6, 2023.
Many residents began shouting in protest to the hearing being carried yet again after they came out tonight in large numbers to oppose the application. Board Chairman Tzvi Herman called for a recess to deal with all the shouting. He then asked the crowd to leave the room nicely.
The application was submitted by 394 Chandler Holdings, LLC, which appears to be owned by Rabbi Mordechai Neuman.
As depicted in the Site Plan designed by Lake Como, NJ-based Dynamic Engineering, the project is for a campus with 4 buildings:
A - 23,730 sq foot (Gross Floor Area) Boys High School for 153 students. 51 off-street parking spaces will be provided as required under Jackson's zoning ordinance of 1 space per 3 high school students.
B - 57,942 sq foot (Gross Floor Area) Boys Elementary School for 712 students. 89 off-street parking spaces will be provided as required under Jackson's zoning ordinance of 1 space per 8 elementary school students.
C - 63,160 sq foot (Gross Floor Area) Girls Elementary School for 810 students. 112 off-street parking spaces will be provided, more than the 102 spaces required.
D - 57,942 sq foot (Gross Floor Area) Boys Elementary School for 776 students. 101 off-street parking spaces will be provided, more than the 97 spaces required.
The entire parcel is 23.25 acres in area. The total Gross Floor Area of the proposed buildings is 202,774 sq feet.
The Planning Board application seeks Preliminary and Final Major Subdivision Approval to subdivide property Block 801, Lots 62 and 63 into 3 new reconfigured lots and construct 4 schools with related site improvements.
The application also seeks Preliminary and Final Major Site Plan Approval.
The lots are located in the R-3 residential zone and partially in the conservation zone overlay zone.
Schools are a permitted use in these zoning districts.
As originally submitted, the application required bulk variance with respect to minimum front yard setback from unimproved streets as well as a number of design waivers.
At the Board's originally scheduled public hearing on the application in March, a large crowd of objectors came out. Attorney Donna Jennings Esq. representing the applicant told the Board that seeing the large size of the crowd interested in the application, and taking note that their application does require variances and waivers, they want to table the application and redesign the plan to eliminate the variances and waivers so as to make it variance-free and by-right.
The application has now been revised to eliminate the bulk variances, however, the application does require design waivers with respect to: (i) providing survey requirements for certain topographic features within the site and within 200 feet of the site, (ii) maximum footcandle illumination, (iii) location of retaining wall within a required buffer, (iv) minimum width of buffer area, (v) location of parking area within a required buffer, (vi) minimum curbed return radii of access drives, (vii) minimum internal curbed radii, (viii) parking within the front yard, (ix) minimum distance of a driveway from the side property line, (x) minimum width of landscaped parking islands, (xi) providing required sidewalk and curbing along street frontages, and (xii) minimum width of landscaping area for refuse storage enclosure.
According to public records obtained by FAA News, Rabbi Neuman acquired Lot 46 (621 Jackson Mills Road) on January 17, 2023 for $880,000; Lot 62 (394 Chandler Road) on February 24, 2022 for $3,600,000; and Lot 63 (390 Chandler Road) on October 6, 2022 for $729,000.
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