Leaders of Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, N.J., were preparing for a Cinco de Mayo festival late one night when the news began to spread: The mayor planned to use eminent domain to seize their church and its 11 acres of land.
Under his plan, the church, which was founded in 1865, would be replaced by 10 pickleball courts, a soccer field and a playground with a nautical theme, according to an engineer’s drawing. The first vote by the Township Council, Toms River’s governing board, was the next afternoon.
The proposal represented a curious new twist in an ongoing battle in the large Jersey Shore community. An affordable housing nonprofit that rents space from the church had asked to create a small homeless shelter on the very land the mayor now wanted to turn into a park. The request was unpopular with neighbors, and the organization was awaiting approval from a zoning board.
The mayor, Daniel T. Rodrick, called the timing a “coincidence.” But opponents have condemned the park plan as a thinly disguised way to block the shelter.
The effort to buy or take the land is all but certain to face legal challenges. But it has unleashed an emotional debate over property rights, religious liberty and the limits of a community’s responsibility to care for poor people at a time when the Trump administration is making deep cuts to safety-net programs that provide emergency food and housing.
“I am outraged,” said Rabbi William Gershon of Congregation B’nai Israel, a conservative synagogue that has been in Toms River for 75 years. “If you can do it to them, you can do it to any of us.”
Rabbi Gershon said members of the town’s interfaith council were united in their opposition to the effort, which he considers an attempt to use “political levers to cudgel a community, almost vindictively.”
With a population of nearly 100,000, Toms River is one of New Jersey’s largest communities and is within 15 miles of some of the state’s most desirable Atlantic Ocean beaches. As property values have soared, coastal motels that once offered inexpensive lodging and seasonal work have been replaced in many Jersey Shore towns by multimillion-dollar homes, straining an already limited supply of affordable housing.
According to one estimate, the number of homeless residents in the region has doubled since the pandemic. Tent encampments have sprung up as makeshift housing, forcing uncomfortable conversations about how to address homelessness in a largely affluent region of the state.
A Township Council meeting three weeks ago where the proposal to take Christ Episcopal’s land was discussed publicly for the first time was long and contentious.
Speakers shared personal stories of homelessness, addiction and redemption. Councilmen opposed to the seizure invoked the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, suggesting he would have supported it, too.
“You hate God? You hate Christ? Obviously you hate humanity,” a councilman shouted at a councilwoman.
“Why don’t you pipe down,” she shouted back.
The proposal authorizing the township to take the church property passed during the meeting, 4 to 3, in a preliminary vote. A final vote on the measure could take place as early as next Wednesday.
Mr. Rodrick, a Republican, said the church and its land figured prominently in his vision for opening up access to the river that the township is named for. He would prefer to buy the land (he estimates it’s worth $4 million) but is prepared to seize it, if necessary. He also hopes to take several other waterfront parcels and build a tiki bar and jet ski rental hub.
The church property, he said, presents “a great opportunity for parking, for recreation.”
Its owner, the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, has stated unequivocally that the property is not for sale, and its rector has made clear the church is “prepared for a long court fight to protect our congregation and property from this egregious land grab.”
Christ Episcopal is one of the largest and most active of the diocese’s roughly 135 churches, according to Bishop Sally J. French, who leads the diocese. Razing it would also endanger the more than 20 programs it offers as part of a commitment to what Bishop French calls “gospel justice,” including 12-step addiction meetings and a weekly food pantry.
The Affordable Housing Alliance, a nonprofit that rents office space on the property, requested permission from township zoning officials to build a 17-bed shelter there months ago. The church supports the plan, but many residents of a neighborhood that would be nearest to the shelter do not.
Edward F. Bezdecki, a lawyer who lives near the church and is trying to block the shelter, said he was concerned about the housing alliance’s screening processes and where shelter residents might go during the daytime hours.
“What do they do?” he asked. “They’re wandering around the neighborhood. Are they burglars? Were they in jail for burglary? Are they pedophiles?”
The bishop said that providing shelter was “actually a way to diminish the community concerns.”
“You’ve provided them with opportunities and the capacity to do what they need to do to get employment, to begin to contribute to the community in ways they haven’t been able to do because of their difficult, painful circumstances,” she said.
Mr. Rodrick, who became mayor last year, initiated the eminent domain effort three weeks before the zoning board was set to vote on whether to allow the shelter to operate in a residential area. A decision is expected on Thursday.
He described his intention to create a park on the church land as a matter of priorities.
“When you balance the hardships — you have a whole community without a park, and 65 or 70 people who could probably drive to a different location on a Sunday” to attend church, Mr. Rodrick said in an interview. (Bishop French said weekly attendance at Sunday services, which are offered in English and in Spanish, was more than twice that figure.)
“As the guy who is supposed to look out for the welfare of all of the residents of Toms River, when you balance out those two things,” the mayor said, “it’s pretty clear which side I should be on.”
The controversy appears to have little to do with traditional party politics. In a state controlled by Democrats, Toms River and the surrounding county are conservative strongholds. Republicans hold most local offices and dominate elected boards.
Still, three Republican councilmen spoke out strenuously against the mayor’s eminent domain resolution before voting against it, calling it hardhearted and plainly intended to circumvent the shelter.
The mayor, a former schoolteacher, said that he was used to being challenged by his political rivals after spirited battles in the last year over control of an animal shelter, declining police staffing levels and a redevelopment plan he scuttled.
“They fill the room and make a jerk out of me in the meeting and, like President Trump, my numbers just keep going up,” he said. “The people are with me.”
Even Republicans who agree the church property might not be the ideal location for a shelter have warned that the eminent domain battle is likely to expose the township to a protracted and costly legal fight.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and I think it sets a bad precedent,” said Maurice Hill, Toms River’s previous mayor, who lost to Mr. Rodrick in a Republican primary.
While seizing a church might sound unusual, David Schleicher, a professor of property and urban law at Yale Law School, said that religious institutions had no broad federal protections from eminent domain.
Showing that a government entity acted vindictively could provide a defense, he said, but that can be hard to prove.
“The history of eminent domain is the history of government doing things for questionable purposes,” Professor Schleicher said.
Other legal scholars have noted that constitutional arguments centered on religious liberty are often more effective than those that hinge on land-use law. Quirks of the New Jersey Constitution might also provide Christ Episcopal with an added layer of protection.
“New Jersey courts tend to dig a little deeper than the federal courts,” said Ronald K. Chen, a former dean of Rutgers Law School who also served as the state’s public advocate. “But there’s no guarantee they will reach a different result.”
Opponents of the seizure appear aware that the church’s best strategy might be winning in the court of public opinion before any legal wrangling begins.
Affordable housing advocates and a formerly homeless man who founded the online interview series Portraits of the Jersey Shore held a rally on Saturday that drew scores of protesters.
Christ Episcopal’s choir director, Polly Moore, said parishioners were buying church T-shirts to wear in solidarity to the Township Council’s meeting next Wednesday, when the eminent domain ordinance could win final approval.
Ms. Moore, 75, first joined the choir in 1959 with her siblings and parents, whose cremated remains are interred in a memorial garden on the church’s property.
“I’m horrified that he would have the audacity to try to do something like this with such a thriving, vibrant church,” Ms. Moore said of the mayor.
Mr. Rodrick said he was confident that most other residents supported his plan. He claimed a poll of about 400 residents taken after the first vote authorizing the use of eminent domain showed him with 66 percent support.
Asked which company had conducted the poll, he said he had done it himself.
“I didn’t get here by accident,” he said. “It’s a combination of wanting to do the right thing and knowing what you’re doing.”
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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