The two-story, 50,040-square-foot building would replace an existing mosque owned by the Muslim Society of Jersey Shore.
TOMS RIVER -- A proposal to build a mosque and a private Islamic school on Route 9 faces opposition from a small group of residents in the North Dover section of town.
The two-story, 50,040-square-foot building would replace an existing mosque owned by the Muslim Society of Jersey Shore. Its chairman, Mohamad Elmasry, said the school would help fill a void in the area for Muslim residents.
But a group of residents opposing the application say the new school and mosque would increase traffic in an area already congested and that the building would be jammed into a small area of land.
The Muslim Society of Jersey Shore needs the variance because a Toms River zoning ordinance requires private and public schools and houses of worship to be located on at least 10 acres. The current lot is 5.6 acres.
Elmasry, whose mosque has been in the township since 1998, said the school is needed to fill the demand of an increasing Muslim population in the area. He said the nearest Islamic school to the north is roughly 50 miles away in Old Bridge and there's one in Burlington County. But nothing in the Shore area and south of it, Elmasry said.
The U.S. Religious Census estimates there were approximately 3,000 Muslim residents in Ocean County in 2010, the last year data is available. That compared to 400 in 2000, according to the data, which was collected by sampling different Islamic organizations. Not all groups participated in the survey, however, and some mosques may not have accurately estimated their congregation size.
Elmasry said he's never objected to any new construction or expansion in the area from other businesses and homeowners.
"I've never had a problem with the city," Elmasry said, standing outside the mosque as cars and firetrucks zipped by. "We go by the law, by the book. Everything we do we go to the city and ask. Once we wanted to paint the building outside. I went and asked if we needed a permit, and they laughed. I don't want to be in violation of anything."
Elmasry's property is sandwiched between a towing company and a vacant lot he said is slated to be a storage facility. The owners of those companies declined to comment on the proposal.
The opposition is coming from homeowners located behind the property. Elmasry said there is a buffer zone of more than 50 feet between the Muslim Society property and the nearest home on Kathleen Court.
An architectural rendering of what the new mosque and Islamic school will look like. (Courtesy of Mohamad Elmasry) An attorney hired by four families, Edward Liston Jr., said the Muslim Society is "cramming a school" into an area of land that's not big enough to meet the township's requirements.
"They want to build a pretty big building on a parcel that's less than half the size of the parcel that's required under the ordinance," Liston said.
He said his clients' other objection is that the new school would generate a "lot of traffic" in the area.
"That's going to have a negative impact on not only my clients but on Route 9," Liston said. "The Department of Transportation has no plans to widen Route 9 in that area."
Elmasry said the traffic argument doesn't hold up because the area is already filled with commercial businesses, including a Wawa, that generate a lot of incoming and outgoing traffic, and that the school is only going to have a maximum of 140 students.
"If we have a school here and there's traffic here, assuming, it's all commercial," he said. "Who is going to be bothered by that? It's Route 9. It's not a side road."
He said there is already another school in the area (the Joeseph A. Citta Elementary School, which is about 2 miles north) and an Indian temple (Shri Siddhivinayak Temple USA) just up the street.
Elmasry said the application is facing spillover opposition from a lawsuit pending in federal court by the head of a Chabad in Toms River.
The Chabad sued the town and its planning board in March 2016, claiming the town violated its rights to religious freedom and equal protection when the town refused to continue to let it operate a religious center in a residential zone.
The lawsuit is the first item mentioned in a flier making its rounds in North Dover regarding the Muslim Society's application. The flier, headlined with the phrase, "More trouble in Toms River," accuses the Muslim Society of "trying to take advantage of their religious status and force our zoning board into approving their project."
"Approval of this project," the flier warns, will "open the door to countless other religious groups to demand approvals on similar sized lots throughout the Township."
Liston, the attorney, said religion is not the motivating factor behind his clients' objections.
This Don't Sell sign was on the lawns of several property owners in the North Dover section of Toms River in 2016. (AP photo/Mel Evans)"These are people who are simply asking that the zoning ordinance be enforced," he said.
It's unclear who distributed the flier, but it's signed with a slogan -- "Toms River Strong" -- that has become synonymous in the area with homeowners fighting the influx of Orthodox Jews moving out of Lakewood and into Toms River.
Elmasry said the flier is "uncalled for" and is "disturbing to any balanced person."
"Any person who reads the title of the flier being distributed across here is offended," he said.
A hearing on the application is scheduled for June 8.
NJ Advance Media reporter Erin Petenko contributed to this report.
Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.