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.”