They also want to use 50 acres for school-related athletic fields, and that's where the problems begin. Because the tract is zoned for single-family homes on three-acre lots, they need a variance, and the township's planning board has already indicated that it's opposed to the size of the athletic field component, citing noise and traffic. With a board vote looming for Monday night, the monks will apparently counter-propose using 30 acres for the athletic fields, and include a retreat house.

"If that's the case, it's certainly better than what they proposed before," according to planning board head Joseph Weber. "It's certainly an improvement."

Plans for the tract also include up to 100 acres of open space and greenbelts in various forms. There are other concerns. Environmentalists don't like the project: the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions is opposed to the retirement community in general because it would require extending a sewer line to the site.

The National Park Service is against it because the site borders on the Jockey Hollow National Historical Site, a Revolutionary War campground on which George Washington's Continental Army spent two winters. The National Park Service wants to team with the New Jersey Green Acres Program to pay as much as $4 million to buy the land and keep it undeveloped, but that number isn't close to the site's development value, according to observers.

If the retirement community doesn't fly, Plan B for the Order is to build 38 single-family homes on about half of the tract, which conforms to current zoning. "We consider that our least attractive option for developing the land," according to a spokesman for the group.