The Mosque Is OK, But Not Its Location
A place for everything and everything in its place. The issue is not whether or not there should be a mosque in West Windsor. The issue is “Should the township grant a zoning variance when there already exists a section zoned ROR for such a facility, where no variance would be required, and there is land available?”
Not granting the variance does not mean you oppose a mosque. I oppose the variance but not a mosque. I welcome the IIS and the range of services it promises to provide to the residents of West Windsor and surrounding communities. The good intentions of its members are admirable. IIS does need space to grow — and even from their current proposed site plans.
I am against poor land development planning and deviating from the township master plan. There is plenty of available land elsewhere in the ROR zone for a mosque. The proposed site on Old Trenton Road is zoned for commercial office/research use. Granting the variance weakens our town’s zoning laws by setting a bad precedent for allowing future unintended development of property in West Windsor.
The township master plan clearly and thoughtfully envisions the proper location for such a facility as the mosque — the ROR zone. The excerpt from the master plan (Section 3, page 29) regarding the ROR zone reads as follows:
“The new zone would permit government and private cultural and social community campuses, as well as places of worship as part of cultural and social community campuses and as stand alone uses. Cultural and social community campuses in the ROR zone may contain one or any combination of the following uses: gymnasiums, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, fitness centers, athletic fields, indoor and outdoor tennis and basketball courts, playgrounds, year round sports programs, summer day camps, early childhood centers (daycare, nursery school), primary and/or secondary schools, auditoriums, conference and meeting facilities, classrooms, senior citizen and youth centers, places of worship and associated parish houses and religious school buildings and general and professional offices for recreational, religious, social, social service and/or cultural organizations.”
A reason in the article for IIS to build on the site (and seek approval of the variance) is because:
“The site on Old Trenton Road not only gives them the ideal space needed, it is located within West Windsor, where most of their members choose to live because of the township’s diversity.”
The ROR zone would fit and exceed those criteria. The ROR zoned area is more centrally located in West Windsor, near public transportation, and would showcase our town’s diversity by having a church, mosque, and synagogue all in the same vicinity.
In contrast, the current RO-1 zoning for the Old Trenton Road location is described in the master plan (Sec 3, page 31) as:
“This area is located at one of the main ‘gateways’ to the Township, is largely undeveloped but has an excellent potential for future regionally oriented economic development due to access to Route 571 and the Hightstown Bypass. The current Plan intent is to promote moderately scaled research/office use in a planned setting. . . In addition, the new district would support commercial recreation and support the creation of research and business development incubator facilities, providing flexible designed spaces that could accommodate shared administrative, laboratory, computer and related research support services. Limited manufacturing/storage will also be permitted where related to these facilities, but only in conjunction with a planned development park, including start up and incubator firms. Limiting such use to larger planned developments will allow better site design so as to reduce environmental impacts and potential conflicts with surrounding neighborhoods.”
Based on the vastly different master plan descriptions, the logical choice for a mosque is the ROR zoned area. A zoning variance for the IIS facility in the RO-1 area would effectively abandon the master plan. Casting aside the master plan will allow future unintended development since a precedent will now exist to disregard the master plan.
So let us all welcome a mosque to our town, but have it located in the proper location. Sajjad Khan
Canal Pointe
Questions for IIS
Thank you to the WW-P News for helping put a face on the group (Institute of Islamic Studies) that wants to build the mosque. The more information the better. There are still some unanswered questions in my mind:
1. Why is the organization seeking a zoning variance when there is other zoned land in West Windsor that doesn’t need a variance? Is it additional construction or engineering expenses at the other locations in township that makes the land on Old Trenton Road financially attractive? If there are financial concerns does the organization even have enough money to see the project through to completion?
2. What do their “evaluations” say about the impact of removing tax generating land from the township? Once the variance is given, the land is gone for tax revenue purposes. A “quick and dirty” calculation says that the loss of future tax revenue will run into the millions of dollars over time.
For example, a 50,000 square foot commercial building on that site, at a value of $6 million, would generate around $140,000 in annual tax revenue at the current tax rate. That’s about a million dollars of lost tax revenue every seven years that will have to be made up by the residents. This income loss will be in perpetuity. At a time when the township is cutting jobs and services to make budget and the school district just raised our taxes by 2.49 percent, this multi million dollar revenue loss is asking a lot from residents.
3. The Institute for Islamic Studies estimates its membership to double from current levels to 200 families in five years time and then reach 250 familes in 10 years time. The parking lot will only hold 218 cars. Assuming this growth rate holds, where will all these other people park their cars? Is there future planned expansion for parking and other buildings? Will the Institute acquire adjoining land? Will that land also need a zoning law variance?
What impact will that then have on future tax revenues? What assurances do we as residents have that this will not turn in to another mega-mosque like on Route 1 in South Brunswick?
4. The free clinic, day care, and other ancillary services are a good idea in theory. The proposed location on Old Trenton Road is a bad choice when you consider there is no public transportation in the area. It seems obvious that the services should be easily accessible to the people that need it the most. But more importantly, with all these strangers coming in to the area to use these services, what about the safety and security of the the individuals at the Institute and the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods?
This is the hard information that residents need to know to make an informed decision.
Suresh Patel
Estates at Princeton Junction
