Bnos Yaakov on Kent Road and County Line Road has spent the last couple of years battling with their neighbors due to substantial parking deficiencies.
On June 4, 2021, the school purchased the adjoining lot at 18 Cathedral Drive for $300,000. The seller was Ari Goldner. Since that time the school demolished the existing home and turned it into a gravel parking lot.
The neighbors who were upset that a parking lot got plopped down along their long and narrow residential cul-de-sac reported the illegal parking lot to the Township, who in turn ordered the school to submit an application for a Site Plan review for a paved parking lot.
In May 2022, the school did present a Site Plan application to the Planning Board, despite, as illustrated more fully here on FAA News, only the Zoning Board has jurisdiction to approve a parking lot as the principal use of the lot in a residential zoning district. Numerous neighbors opposed the application.
Neighbors also presented the school's fundraising brochure which indicated they were building a banquet hall for outside rentals. As previously reported here on FAA News, Attorney Adam Pfeffer baldly denied existence of any banquet hall.
Since that time, the banquet hall was constructed, whereas the 31 spaces paving work was never completed and the gravel area remains.
As previously reported here on FAA News, in May 2023, the school closed on the $650,000 purchase of 20 Cathedral Drive.
The school is now set tonight, Tuesday, December 17, 2024 to present a revised site plan to the Planning Board for an expanded parking area as well as daycare facilities.
The massive revision with this new plan is that all ingress and egress will only be through Kent Road and County Line Road - and not through Cathedral Drive.
What remains unchanged is that the Planning Board still lacks jurisdiction to approve a parking lot as the principal use of the lot in a residential zoning district.
The plan was originally scheduled for a public hearing at the Board's last meeting. However, the Board tabled the application after a member of the public pointed out substantial flaws with the school's legal notice.
The school's original legal notice invented a claim that the Planning Board can approve the parking lot use as the principal use of the lot in a residential zoning district because the "parking lot expansion would be an ancillary use to the approved school project."
After a member of the public called out this creative invention, the Board tabled the application.
The school has now renoticed the application. Following the previous exposure, the school's new notice omits the outlandish claim that the parking lot is permitted as it "would be an ancillary use to the approved school project."
Moreover, the school developers are now seeking to legalize the banquet hall they previously claimed doesn't exist.
It remains unclear how the application is still on tonight's public hearing agenda as the Township’s ordinances only permit banquet halls in schools in non-residential zoning districts, therefore the Board lacks jurisdiction to hear this application.
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