Synagogue Decision Still Awaited In Brick

BRICK, NJ — The Brick Township Board of Adjustment is scheduled to make a decision on an application to turn a former funeral home into a synagogue next week.

The zoning board met for four hours Wednesday night, discussing parking issues and hearing testimony from residents who are concerned that Temple Beth Or will only add to traffic issues they already are seeing in their neighborhood.

The vote on the application is scheduled for the Oct. 19 zoning board meeting at the municipal building at 7 p.m., board chairman David Chadwick said.

Traffic issues were the biggest concern of residents of the 84-home neighborhood. Pier Avenue, where the former funeral home sits, and Salmon Street, which runs perpendicular, provide the only ways in and out of the development and connect to two busy roads. Pier Avenue connects to Route 70, and Salmon Street to Chambers Bridge Road, where heavy traffic exists year-round from shoppers going in and out of the shopping center where ShopRite and Kohls sit.

Because the right turn from Route 70 onto Chambers Bridge backs up regularly, motorists often use Pier and Salmon as a cut-through to avoid the backup to get to Chambers Bridge.

"I have called 911 a million times," said one resident, who lives on Salmon Street closest to the proposed synagogue, because of crashes that have happened on a regular basis. She said she was hit pulling onto Route 70 from Pier Avenue, which she said she uses because exiting from Salmon Street onto Chambers Bridge Road has become nearly impossible.

Other residents said they are concerned the synagogue will only add to issues they are anticipating with the now-under construction sportsdome and Aldi at the former Foodtown site. Two residents said they believe people will drive to St. Thomas church and park and walk through an access to get to Aldi and shop.

They also cited concerns about existing activities, including a large Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that residents said draws more than 50 people weekly to the church on Saturday evenings, and traffic that comes in to the church from a weekday program for developmentally disabled adults.

Residents said they believe those existing traffic issues will only get worse with the addition of the synagogue, and raised concerns about what happens if the congregation grows from its current numbers in the coming years.

"I'm concerned about what's going to happen next year and the year after that and five years from now," one man said.

"We're getting dumped on and dumped on and dumped on and no one seems to care," another resident said, citing the anticipated increase in traffic to the sportsdome and the retail portions of the former Foodtown site.

Temple Beth Or has had a declining congregation, Rabbi Robert Rubin testified. The declining membership in the congregation, which is a Conservative Jewish congregation, is what led it to sell its property on Van Zile Road, Rubin said.

Conservative Jews are a different organization from Orthodox Jews, and worship differently from the Orthodox organization, from how they dress to the rules they follow regarding technology.

The congregation of Temple Beth Or, which has been in Brick Township for 50 years, is comprised of older members. One member of the congregation who spoke at the hearing testified that it does not have young children among its members.

"I am one of the youngest members of the congregation, and I'm in my 50s," she said. Intermarriage between Jews and those of other faiths, and a general decline in religious service attendance seen across all faiths is affecting membership, she said.

That is seen in the attendance at services, Rubin has said, with fewer than 20 people generally attending services with the exception of the two high holy days, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, which can see as many as 50 or 60 attendees.

Jeffrey Carr, the planner for the Temple Beth Or application, said he conducted counts of cars parked in the St. Thomas parking lot for the Temple Beth Or services — the congregation has been meeting at the church for the last 18 months, Rubin has said — and there were fewer than 10 cars on each occasion.

Brick Township's engineer said he also did parking counts at the site and his counts were similar to those Carr testified to Wednesday night.

Residents asked about social media postings from 2021 where Temple Beth Or said it planned to continue its bingo and gift auctions. Rubin and the congregation member who spoke said those are no longer under consideration.

"The building is not big enough," the woman said.

The Oct. 19 hearing will include final statements from John Jackson, the attorney for Temple Beth Or, and from zoning board attorney Anne Marie Rizzuto, and the vote by the board.