'Boys School' Rumor For Brick Temple Site Untrue: Officials

BRICK, NJ — A claim circulating on social media that a boys high school is set to be discussed at an August meeting of the Brick Township Planning Board is not true, township officials said Thursday.

The flyer, which has been posted in several Facebook groups and shared on Patch, claims the planning board is set to hear a proposal to turn the Temple Beth Or property on Van Zile Road into "an illegal boys school."

The flyer claims the proposal is set to be discussed at the Aug. 11 planning board meeting, and urges people to come to the municipal building.

Brick Township Planning Board secretary Pamela O'Neill, who manages the calendar for the planning and zoning board, said there isn't even an application filed for the site at 200 Van Zile Road.

"We have no application for the property and it is not scheduled for Planning Board on Aug. 11th or the Board of Adjustment," O'Neill said in an email to Patch Thursday afternoon.

Temple Beth Or sold the property earlier this year because its congregation is shrinking.

The flyer, which claimed the application has to be approved quickly because of school starting in September, set off a flurry of phone calls and shares on social media, with people complaining about potential impacts to traffic and quality of life.

Brick Township business administrator Joanne Bergin said the posting "was inaccurate."

"We have received phone calls regarding a posting indicating there was a Planning Board meeting scheduled to hear an application for the Temple Beth Or site. That posting was inaccurate and created confusion," she said. "There is no application filed and there is no hearing date."

The process of getting an application before the planning or zoning board is governed by state land use laws that include a number of requirements. The flyer claimed the owner was seeking a change of use.

To do that, an application would have to be filed, and once the application is complete, a date set for the hearing.

Once a hearing date is set, the property owner must notify everyone whose properties are within 200 feet of the property, and they have to provide proof that the letters were properly mailed. The hearing also must be advertised in legal notices in at least one newspaper.

Township Planner Tara Paxton told Jersey Shore Online that it usually takes two to four months to get through the administrative process just to the point of getting onto the agenda.

Failure to follow any of those rules can lead to an automatic denial by the planning board.

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