Controversial plan for church on Hackensack Agenda Tonight
BY MONSY ALVARADO
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
16/6/2011
HACKENSACK — St. Gabriel’s Syriac Orthodox Church outgrew its one-story building on Fairmount Avenue many years ago.
The congregation, with its 120 families, wants to build a larger house of worship a block south, on a site that is now home to St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The congregation wants to raze the brick church building at the intersection of Grand and Ross avenues, which it bought in 2009, along with a two-story home, to make room for a 13,016-square-foot building, according to documents submitted to the city.
The new structure would consist of a sanctuary, a meeting room, and class space for Bible study and Sunday school, according to the plans. The proposal also includes a 37-space parking lot, but city ordinances require that the building have at least 168 spots. The Board of Adjustment is scheduled to hear the application tonight.
“Churches are closing left and right, but we are trying to keep a church open, which is good for a community,” said the Rev. Aziz Hadodo, pastor of the church, who said the plans have been scaled back since they were first submitted to the city.
But the proposal has already generated opposition from Ross Avenue residents who say they don’t want a large church in their neighborhood and the increased traffic and on-street parking it will bring. The residents also argue that more cars could negatively affect some of the disabled adults and children, who use wheelchairs, living on the block.
“They need to build a compatible church like the one that is there,” said Tom Carucci, who has lived on Ross Avenue for more than 40 years. “This one is too big of a building for this area.”
Stefani Pedone, who lives on Ross Avenue across the street from the house that would be torn down, said the neighborhood already sees more traffic on weekends when recreational sports are played on a Grand Avenue field across from St. Mark’s. Also, St. Mark’s is used as a polling place.
“We have enough here,” she said. “This is just not the right corner.”
The objections are not new to members of St. Gabriel’s, who also met similar resistance from residents in Haworth when it proposed erecting a church in that community several years ago.
In 2008, after five years of hearings and litigation, St. Gabriel’s received permission to build a 5,900-square-foot building on 3.5 acres in Haworth. The approved project included a sanctuary, a multi-purpose room and 60 parking spaces.
Construction has not begun in Haworth and Aziz Akyom, president of the church’s Board of Trustees, said the congregation is undecided on whether it should build a house of worship in Hackensack or Haworth.
St. Gabriel’s has been in Hackensack since 1994. Back then it consisted of only 30 families, who wanted to attend service in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.
Most of the church’s members are first-generation immigrants from southern Turkey.
Hadodo said church officials are willing to meet with Hackensack neighbors and listen to their concerns, and see whether they can agree on changes.
“It’s their community, we want to be part of their community, and we will work with them,” said Hadodo, a retired civil engineer who sits on the New Milford Board of Adjustment.
“We’ll try our best and then leave it up to the Lord,” Hadodo said. “Whatever happens, happens.”
Unlike St. Gabriel, St. Mark’s has seen a decline in it membership for more than a decade. In 2000, 30 members attended Sunday services, but now only 10 sit in the pews, said Piotr Pilch, the pastor.
“A lot of people either retired and moved further south,” he said.
The small numbers, he said, could not support the upkeep of the large building which has been on the site since the ’50s. For a few years, the church shared its space with a Korean congregation, Pilch said.
“The cost of living and cost of everything is going up and sometimes that was doable in the past, but it’s no longer doable,” he said.
