NJ town doesn't want to be like Queens

Photo by R. Acosta, Saving Silverton Facebook Page

From BloombergBusiness:

Every home is big on glass in a Toms River, New Jersey, neighborhood called North Dover. Windows let in the sun, or show off chandeliers in multistory entrance halls.

These days, though, most homeowners draw the blinds, retreating from brushes with a fast-growing Orthodox Jewish community that’s trying to turn a swath of suburban luxury 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Atlantic beaches into an insular enclave. The rub, a township inquiry found, is “highly annoying, suspicious and creepy” tactics used by some real-estate agents.

They show up on doorsteps to tell owners that if they don’t sell, they’ll be the only non-Orthodox around. Strangers, sometimes several to a car, shoot photos and videos. When they started pulling over to ask children which house was theirs, parents put an end to street-hockey games.

Lakewood, once a rural destination for Rockefellers and other industry titans, is now a land of synagogues, religious schools, kosher groceries and residential neighborhoods in the grip of minivan gridlock. It’s also a place testing the limits of zoning enforcement for 95,000 people, at least half Orthodox, by Schnall’s estimate.

This month, after fire destroyed a single-family home, the Ocean County sheriff said that it was being used as an unauthorized dorm for as many as two dozen yeshiva students. Downtown, inspectors boarded up a commercial building four times, citing non-permitted use as a catering hall and Orthodox study center, only to see the plywood removed and the space reopened. The fifth board-up succeeded, backed by a planning-board ruling, said Steven Secare, the township attorney.

That’s unlikely, according to Michael Dedominicis, a 40-year-old construction company owner who leads a social-media group called Toms River Strong that urges the town’s 91,000 residents not to sell. His account of dropping by a neighbor’s open house and being denied entry by its Orthodox listing agent is included in a 16-page report on real-estate canvassing issued by township officials Feb. 5.

“Where is the law in this situation?” Dedominicis said in an interview. “I have homeowners calling me, saying, 'They’re converting a three-car garage into bedrooms!'”

The opposition, he said, has nothing to do with dislike of Jews, but with a fear that Toms River will become like Lakewood’s more tattered sections, with cars parked on lawns, overgrown landscaping, trash piled at curbs and residents crowding single-family homes.
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Oh, come on now. In Queens, our elected official claim that this type of living is vibrant and diverse. What's wrong with these New Jerseyans?

1000-person yeshiva dorm planned for Glendale

From the Queens Chronicle:

The United Talmudical Seminary at 74-10 88 St. in Glendale has filed an application with the Department of Buildings to construct a four-story, 142,183-square-foot structure containing office space, classrooms and student dormitories on a plot of land adjacent to the facility.

The Brooklyn-based rabbinical school, which opened its Glendale location in 2006 after years of heated opposition from area residents, buses its students in from Williamsburg every day.

The new structure would allow the students to live next to the school, with the busing of students being all but eliminated.

The application has been sent to a plan examiner for analysis. The site is zoned M1-1, a light manufacturing district.

Plans call for the ground floor to contain offices and three classrooms, with the top three floors being set aside for an unannounced number of student dorms.

The Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp. sold the former textile factory to the United Talmudical Seminary for $3.5 million in January 2004, and the DOB shot down plans to build 100 units of housing at the site later that year over zoning regulations.

Hey folks, this is a continuation of one of the earliest stories that was reported on this blog back in 2006. They tried to slip a dorm past DOB and the community back in 2006, and now they are trying to go the legal route, although I don't know if this will pass muster with the zoning. Certain groups in this city seem to always get their way, though, and the city seems hellbent on blockbusting Glendale lately, so be prepared for 1000 students to inundate the quiet manufacturing area and further overtax city services.