Sayreville planning board carries mosque site-plan vote after hours of public comment on traffic, soil and parking

The Sayreville Planning Board on May 7 carried a decision on the site-plan application from Masjid Sadar Community Center for 212–216 Ernston Road to its June 4 meeting after more than three hours of public comment focused on parking, traffic, soil testing and neighborhood impacts.

The board heard evidence that the applicant has submitted soil borings, an environmental impact statement and traffic analyses; the applicant's attorney, Lawrence Sachs, said "the applicant does rest." Nazimul Saheb, director and imam of Masjid Sadar Community Center, told the board the center "will work to ensure that our center is a positive addition to the community promoting harmony and understanding."

Why it matters: neighbors and the applicant presented sharply different emphases — residents pressed for more testing and limits to protect property and traffic safety, while the applicant and its consultants maintained required studies have been submitted and proposed conditions and mitigations. The board said it will not vote until it has reviewed the full set of conditions in writing.

Most residents who spoke cited traffic and parking as the central issues. Elizabeth Pinello, a longtime resident near the site, said the proposed three‑story structure "will greatly affect my quality of life" and described worries about noise, shadows and increased street parking. Several residents cited Ernston Road's county designation as among Middlesex County's most dangerous roads and warned that limited on‑site parking would cause spillover into surrounding streets.

The applicant and its counsel responded with several commitments on the record: the project will rely on on‑site parking to meet its requirements (off‑site spaces discussed earlier are not being offered to satisfy the ordinance), the applicant said it would cooperate with the county on a crosswalk subject to county approval, and the team said it would agree to police monitoring of the Bordentown Avenue/Ernston Road intersection if the board desired. "We will agree to do that," Lawrence Sachs said when describing traffic‑management commitments.

Environmental and construction‑safety concerns were also prominent. Multiple residents raised the town's known history of contamination and asked whether soil testing and groundwater sampling have been done to depths that would detect buried contamination or unexploded ordnance. In response the applicant's attorney and engineer said the submission includes soil borings, an environmental impact statement and review comments from CME (the borough's consultant). The record includes a proposed condition that a soils report demonstrating the ability of the site soils to support the proposed structure be prepared by a licensed professional engineer and that the report "address the potential impacts of vibrations during construction on adjacent properties." The board said that such studies and any required remediation or agency approvals (for example, from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection) are outside the planning board's technical enforcement authority but are required by state and other agencies.

Neighbors also pressed for pre‑construction inspections and monitoring. The board confirmed on the record that, at a prior meeting, the applicant agreed as a condition that predevelopment inspections of foundations of homes adjacent to the property would be performed before construction and that monitoring would be performed during construction to record baseline conditions and detect any construction‑related damage.

Other technical issues raised at the hearing included the proposed underground parking (the architect's testimony in the record states the bottom floor of the garage would be about 5 feet below the grade of Ernston Road and at approximately elevation 86), stormwater management (CME requested additional details and noted detention and water‑quality elements must be shown), sanitary sewer capacity (the applicant must provide calculations to demonstrate existing downstream sewer lines can accept increased flows), and lighting, noise and vehicular access design and setbacks per the Borough's land‑use ordinance.

The board's attorney and professionals told members they had compiled a list of conditions and plan revisions that must be reconciled in writing before a vote. On that basis the board accepted a recommendation from counsel to delay action so members can review the final written conditions. The applicant's attorney agreed to the timeline: "I will consent to this being carried till June 4 at Borough Hall at 7:30 p.m. without any further notice," he said.

What happens next: the public‑comment portion closed and the applicant will file any remaining technical updates or revised plans needed to satisfy the borough consultant. The planning board will consider a motion and vote on the most current application and the explicit memorializing resolution at the June 4 meeting; if approved, the resolution will include any conditions the board imposes and will be the binding document for enforcement and subsequent outside‑agency approvals.

Among the record items the board will consider at that meeting are the soils/geo‑technical report and any remediation requirements, the sanitary sewer analysis, finalized stormwater/detention designs, occupancy and parking calculations, and any agreed traffic‑management measures such as a county crosswalk or police monitoring of the intersection. The board also indicated it will distribute the compiled conditions to the applicant in advance so the applicant can comment before members vote.