A Jackson resident is suing to stop a private Orthodox Jewish boys’ school from being built in the Ocean County township, arguing officials rushed to approve the project without addressing environmental and zoning concerns.
Chris Podolsky filed an amended lawsuit last month after the Jackson Township Planning Board approved plans for Yeshiva Ner Moshe, a private religious school with dormitories. The school is proposed for a nearly 25-acre vacant lot along Frank Applegate Road in a residential area of the township.
In the lawsuit, Podolsky claims the board signed off on the development before determining whether the site can safely handle flooding, stormwater runoff and on-site septic systems.
The lawsuit also says the board approved the school as a permitted use rather than a conditional use, which would have required stricter review and a 50-foot landscaped buffer between the campus and neighboring residential properties.
The complaint asks an Ocean County Superior Court judge to throw out the approval and send the project back to the planning board for a new review.
In November, the planning board approved the application from Applegate Owner LLC, a Lakewood-based developer, to build the school.
Attorneys for the developer did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. The Jackson Township Planning Board also did not respond.
According to planning documents, the project would include a two-story, 50,603-square-foot building housing a private Orthodox Jewish boys’ high school and a post-high-school higher learning institute.
Rabbi Avrohom Moshe Nierenberg, a teacher at the school who is involved in its management, testified at a planning board hearing that the school currently operates out a Lakewood location. It would serve about 160 high school students at the new Jackson site.
The building would include six classrooms and two separate bais medrashes — large study halls dedicated to learning the Torah.
The site would also include offices, a dining hall and other support spaces, as well as 22 dormitory rooms for the higher learning institute. One dorm room would be reserved for a counselor overseeing the students.
The higher learning institute would house about 66 students. Those students would live on campus and would not be permitted to have cars, according to meeting documents.
The proposed building would stand about 30 feet tall and would be accessed by a two-way driveway off Frank Applegate Road.
High school classes would begin at 8 a.m., according to the proposal. Students who don’t live at the school would leave the campus between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. each night, Sunday through Thursday.
School officials said students would not be allowed to drive to campus, with limited exceptions for parent drop-offs in special circumstances. Daily busing would be provided.
The property is in a conservation area where water runoff flows toward state protected waterways in the Metedeconk River watershed. The lawsuit says the planning board approved the project without first obtaining a state determination identifying wetlands, buffers and flood hazard areas.
Jackson borders Lakewood, home to New Jersey’s largest Orthodox Jewish community. Jackson has seen rapid Orthodox population growth in recent years, similar to the growth in nearby Toms River and Howell.
The proposal for the school follows past legal challenges to Jackson’s zoning rules affecting Orthodox Jewish institutions.
In 2022, the township settled a federal lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, followed by a 2023 settlement with the state Attorney General’s Office, over zoning ordinances that restricted the development of yeshivas and dormitories. The ordinances were repealed as part of the settlements, which also required Jackson to pay millions in penalties and restitution.
Following those settlements, the township approved its first yeshiva with dormitories in May 2023.