 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Howell Properties2/13/2002
ing statute.
Instead of landlocking plaintiff's property, defendants' remedy was to challenge adoption by Wall of the amended zoning ordinance placing plaintiff's site in the MLC-RAC-2 zone which permitted a density of 3.6 units per gross acre. Defendants clearly had standing to make such a challenge. See Home Builders League of So. Jersey v. Tp. of Berlin, 81 N.J. 127, 131-35 (1979) (recognizing the State's liberal approach to standing in zoning cases and the MLUL's broad definition of "interested party"); see also N.J.S.A. 40:55D-15a (requiring notice of adjoining municipalities of hearing involving adoption of revision of a development regulation). Defendants were on notice of both the density provision and that traffic generated from an approved development based on that density would probably require access through the streets in the adjoining subdivision which had been reserved by defendants for that very purpose.
In a proceeding challenging Wall's zoning amendment, defendants could have raised the very argument they advanced as justifying the landlocking of plaintiff's property; that the permitted density was incompatible with the adjoining residential subdivisions and, as such, was arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable. See Sartoga v. Borough of West Paterson, ___ N.J. Super. __ (App. Div. 2002) (slip op. at 6-8) (where adjoining City challenged zoning ordinance permitting high-density Mount Laurel development, which provided for extension of City's dead- end street to allow access to the development, claiming the zoning was in conflict with the policies of the MLUL). For whatever reason, defendants chose not to appeal, and thus were procedurally barred from challenging the ordinance. See R. 4:69- 6(a). Essentially, we view the vacating of the streets by defendants as an attempt to avoid the procedural bar. We therefore conclude that the adoption of the vacation ordinances constitute an invalid use of defendants' legislative power under N.J.S.A. 40:67-19.
Brick also argues that plaintiff has no right to object to the ordinances, even if the property would be landlocked as a result of the vacation of the streets, because it is not an "abutting" landowner. For this proposition, Brick relies upon Good Deal of Ivy Hill, Inc. v. City of Newark, 32 N.J. 263 (1960), where the owner of commercial property in Maplewood, adjoining Newark, objected to Newark's erection of a barricade at the dead end of a street which terminated at the boundary of the two municipalities. Id. at 265. The Court held that a municipality has no duty to provide access to a road "for a citizen of the adjoining community whose land is just beyond the geographical limit." Id. at 267. The Court concluded that plaintiff, the owner of the land in Maplewood, was not an "abutting" owner entitled to access as a matter of right, in part because the owner would have no standing to challenge the vacation of the dead-end street "should Newark decide to do so." Id. at 268-69. In so finding, the Court found "pertinent" the fact that the dead-end street was "not necessary for purposes of ingress and egress to and from plaintiff's premises, . . . even as a matter of convenience[,]" id. at 269, because plaintiff had access through streets in Maplewood. Id. at 266.
Significant to the matter before us, the Court in Good Deal made the following observation:
t must be kept in mind that we are not dealing with a public street which connects at the boundary line of Newark with a street in Maplewood and so forms part of a traffic communication system between the two municipalities. In such a situation the right of the governing body of either to vacate or close off its street would be open to serious ques
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 New Jersey Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|