DAR AL HARB - U.S.A. - NEW JERSEY: WE WANT ANOTHER MOSQUE ! ! !

Islamic group wants mosque in Rockaway
Proposal calls for use of existing warehouse
BY MATT MANOCHIO DAILY RECORD

ROCKAWAY -- The Budd Lake-based Islamic Center of Morris County has applied to the borough to convert an office and warehouse building on Mannino Drive into a mosque and community center.

The building is about 15,000 square feet and could accommodate about 80 families or 250 people, Mostafa Abuzeed, president of the Islamic Center of Morris County, said Tuesday.

"We have a mixed community, all different nationalities," Abuzeed said of the group's members, most of whom are from Morris County. He said he hopes to see a youth center established in the building, too, to teach children about drugs and other bad influences, and how to avoid them.

Abuzeed said members of the Islamic Center, a nonprofit religious education organization, usually worship at a mosque in Passaic County. He said that establishing a mosque and community center in Rockaway would offer a closer, more central location where the group could pray.

He said the Islamic Center is ready to buy the building on the condition that the borough's zoning board grant a change of use variance for the project to move forward.

"The location is good," Abuzeed, a Rockaway Township resident, said. "It's far away from everybody. There's no homes around. It's private. We wouldn't bother anybody and nobody would bother us."

He said the mosque would be located off of Route 46 so that traffic problems wouldn't occur. The building has enough parking, he said. There are currently 111 parking spaces at the building, according to the application.

Michael J. Spillane, an engineer hired by Rockaway to look at the plan, indicated in a June 14 memo to the borough that there are three issues worth discussing:

• Whether the use is applicable for the building, in terms of zoning;

• Traffic impact on the intersections of Route 46 and Mannino Drive, and Nichols Drive and Main Street;

• Ensuring the building itself is adaptable from the existing office use to a group assembly use.
"The use I am referring to is not the zoning use, but the actual building use," Spillane wrote.
Spillane wrote that 82 departures from the site at the end of a prayer service is going to cause a backup at both intersections.

"The advantage is that the backup will affect essentially only two existing users, the mosque and Tilcon Asphalt," Spillane wrote. "The borough residents will rarely be affected."

Adrian Humbert, a planner hired by the borough to review the application, wrote in a June 4 letter that the applicant referred to "exploring alternate off-site parking arrangements. A full description of these alternative off-site parking arrangements should be presented for the board's consideration."

The peak times of activity at the mosque would be midday on Fridays, according to Humbert.
Humbert also wrote that proposed activities at the center, such as social events and dinners within the prayer hall and all-night devotional prayers "should be more fully described and the number of persons who might be expected to attend should be provided."

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Pertinent Links:

1) Islamic group wants mosque in Rockaway