Questions abound about Laurel Avenue buildings

WEST ORANGE, NJ — A township resident is coming out against the West Orange Zoning Board’s Oct. 15 decision to approve an application to convert the single-family home at 23 Laurel Ave. into a Hindu house of worship and the house at 27 Laurel Ave. into a caretaker’s residence, citing ambiguities about the project and the applicant that he feels almost a year’s worth of hearings on the matter did not fully address.

The resident, who lives in the vicinity of the buildings in question and asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said he does not believe the hearings ever definitively established basic facts about the use of the properties, namely how many people would be visiting, the hours of operation and where people would park in the event of an overflow. And while testimony from the applicant — Sai Hira Ram Trust Inc. — could have cleared up the issues, the resident lamented that no one from the organization spoke at any of the meetings from Jan. 15 onward despite the fact that he, some of his fellow neighbors and the Zoning Board itself explicitly requested to hear from a representative.

“There was testimony from engineers about building a building,” the resident told the West Orange Chronicle in a Dec. 3 phone interview. “But there was no testimony about the actual use of the property by the people who were going to use it.

“Neighbors asked for it on the record, and the chair actually agreed and he told the applicant’s attorney to produce someone from the temple,” he continued. “That didn’t happen.”

Zoning Board Counsel Alice Beirne told the Chronicle the board does not have the authority to compel testimony from anyone unless it is asked to issue a subpoena, which did not occur. Even though it might have expressed an interest in hearing from the applicant, Beirne further clarified that the board was free to vote on the application without doing so if board members felt they had enough information about the project to make a decision.

Still, the resident said he wishes someone from the Sai Hira Ram Trust had spoken at a meeting because he noticed some conflicting statements from experts. The minutes from the hearings do indeed do show some inconsistencies. At the Jan. 15 hearing, for instance, engineer J. Michael Petry testified that main services would be held inside the temple every Thursday and on the full and new moons each month. But at the June 18 meeting, planner Peter Steck said Thursdays and Sundays would be the major times of worship, in addition to the guru’s birthday, the Lunar New Year and Thanksgiving.

Additionally, during the May 21 meeting there appeared to be some confusion as to whether there would be evening prayer sessions in addition to those in the late morning and early afternoon. And while experts said a maximum of 40 people were expected to use the facility, the resident said it was never clear to him how many more people were expected to come in future years.

And, although the hearings did establish that 46 parking spaces would be installed in the temple’s main lot as well as two more inside the caretaker’s garage, the experts who spoke gave different answers as to what would happen in the event that the number of visiting vehicles were to exceed that capacity. Petry said Jan. 15, that people will probably park illegally on the grass, while Steck said on June 18, that he did not know if they would park on nearby Barton Drive — though he said they legally could. Neither option pleased neighbors.

Applicant Anita Thani, identified as a secretary for the Sai Hira Ram Trust in meeting minutes, actually did speak during the Sept. 18, 2014, meeting, the first time the application was brought before the Zoning Board. On that occasion, Thani testified that the temple holds services to worship the guru Sai Baba on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to noon, followed by lunch from noon to 1 p.m., though its meditation room is open from 8 a.m. to noon and 4 to 8 p.m. every day except Thursday. She also said the temple currently has 29 members.

This hearing was later discounted when the process started anew Jan. 15 — an attorney hired by the resident had protested that not enough notice of the Sept. 18 meeting had been given to residents — and Thani did not clarify any inconsistencies that came to light at the meetings that followed.

The resident is not just concerned about the project itself, though; he also has questions about the groups behind it. According to the Zoning Board application, both properties are owned by Sun King Private Limited, which is described as a British Virgin Islands not-for-profit corporation with trustees based in Dubai. Thani stated in her testimony that Sun King purchased the Laurel Avenue buildings in 2005 and 2006. The Roseland-based nonprofit Sai Hira Ram is the properties’ tenant, and Thani said it has been using the properties as a worship site since 2008.

But the resident pointed out that — according to a 2005 New Jersey Treasury Department Division of Revenue application that he provided to the Chronicle — Sun King actually identified itself as a for-profit corporation with the authorization to own and manage property in the state. He questions why the corporation would label itself as a nonprofit on the application, as well as how Sai Hira Ram will pay for the construction. According to an IRS 990 report covering July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2014 — which the resident also provided to the Chronicle — the trust had a book value of only $49,984 at the end of the fiscal year. During her testimony, Thani said the trust relies solely on private donations from within the United States.

In addition, the resident also questions the relationship between Sai Hira Ram and Sun King. Though they are separate entities, the Zoning Board application shows that Thani signed her name as an officer of both groups, although the application does not list her as a trustee of either.

As a result, he said he does not know why the board proceeded to consider and vote on the application when Sai Hira Ram did not officially have Sun King’s authorization to convert the building into a house of worship, as the zoning process requires of tenants.

Beirne said the board went through with its decision because no one had noticed Thani’s two signatures until after the hearings had begun. It was after Beirne spotted it while reviewing the application that the board agreed to include a condition in the eventually-approved resolution requiring that Sun King provide the board with an authorization of the project before any building permits could be issued. And the board counsel said Sun King did just that, sending her an affidavit stating that Thani had been granted permission to sign on behalf of both groups.

Thani declined to answer questions for this article, citing an unwillingness to be in the spotlight. She did, however, clarify that while Sai Hira Ram and Sun King are two separate entities, some of the same people are involved with both organizations. She further confirmed that she was acting on the consent of both parties in signing the application.

And after years of working to get the temple conversion approved, Thani said she is pleased it will soon become a reality.

“I am just grateful to God for whatever we have achieved,” Thani told the Chronicle in a Dec. 11 phone interview.

Meanwhile, the resident recently requested a rehearing on the matter, which was denied by the Zoning Board.