SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-2340-15T4

MGM JACKSON, LLC, FOUNTAINHEAD

PROPERTIES, INC., SHADY LAKE PARK,

INC., LAND O'PINES, INC., and

JACKSON ACRES, LLC,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

JACKSON TOWNSHIP RENT LEVELING

BOARD, TOWNSHIP OF JACKSON and

TOWNSHIP COUNCIL OF THE

TOWNSHIP OF JACKSON,

Defendants-Respondents.

__________________________________________________

Argued September 18, 2017 – Decided

Before Judges Messano and Accurso.

On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, 

Law Division, Ocean County, Docket No. L-1058-

14.

Lori C. Greenberg argued the cause for 

appellants.

Brian E. Rumpf argued the cause for respondent 

Jackson Township Rent Leveling Board.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." 

Although it is posted on the internet, this opinion is binding only on the 

parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

November 16, 2017
2 A-2340-15T4

Robin La Bue argued the cause for respondent 

Township of Jackson, Township Council of 

Township of Jackson (Gilmore & Monahan, PC, 

attorneys; Ms. La Bue, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Plaintiffs, MGM Jackson, LLC, Fountainhead Properties, Inc., 

Shady Lake Park, Inc., Land O'Pines, Inc., and Jackson Acres, LLC, 

are the owners of mobile home parks located in the Township of 

Jackson (Jackson). They filed a complaint in lieu of prerogative 

writs against Jackson and the Jackson Township Rent Leveling Board 

(the Board), challenging Ordinance 05-14.1 Prior to 2014, 

Jackson's rent control ordinance for mobile home parks permitted 

partial vacancy decontrol, allowing a landlord, upon the 

occurrence of a vacancy, to charge the successor tenant the lower 

of "$125 more than the prior tenant's rent, or a new rent which 

[was] no higher than 7.5% more than the highest rent in the park." 

Ordinance 05-14 capped the amount of any rental increase upon a 

vacancy at "no higher than 7.5% of the highest rent in the park 

added to the prior tenant's rent."

Additionally, plaintiffs challenged Jackson's passage of 

Ordinance 08-15, which corrected an administrative oversight from 

 

1 The Board's brief states that in 2001, the separate rent leveling 

boards for apartments and mobile home parks were dissolved and 

reconstituted as a combined board known as the Apartment and Mobile 

Home Park Rent Leveling Board.
3 A-2340-15T4

the passage of an earlier ordinance in 2010. Prior to 2010, the 

ordinance prohibited owners and tenants of mobile home parks or 

residential properties from serving on the Board. Essentially, 

Ordinance 08-15 required one member and one alternate on the ninemember Board to be tenants at mobile home parks and tenants in 

rental or housing units.

Plaintiffs' complaint alleged both Ordinance 05-14 and 

Ordinance 08-15 were invalid, arbitrary, and capricious, violated 

the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Constitution, 

and resulted in an unlawful taking of property without just 

compensation, all violations enforceable by 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983. 

Plaintiffs also alleged that two members of the Board, Garold 

Miller and Ray Schleckser, tenants of plaintiff MGM Jackson's 

mobile home park, had financially benefitted from the change in 

the ordinance, for which they had provided public support. Jackson 

and the Board filed their answers.

Plaintiffs called three witnesses at a hearing before Judge 

Marlene Lynch Ford, after which the judge considered the oral 

arguments of the parties. Judge Ford reserved decision for thirty 

days to permit plaintiffs to supplement the record with official 

minutes from the meetings of Jackson's governing body.2 Judge 

 

2 Judge Ford received a CD containing the minutes of various Board 

meetings.
4 A-2340-15T4

Ford then issued a comprehensive written decision, concluding 

plaintiffs' complaint lacked any merit and factual support. She 

entered the order under review dismissing plaintiffs' complaint 

with prejudice. This appeal followed.

Before us, plaintiffs renew many of the same arguments made 

before Judge Ford. They contend the 7.5% cap is arbitrary, 

capricious and unreasonable, lacks any reasonable relationship to 

a "proper legislative purpose," and violates equal protection 

because it subjects one class of tenants to burdens not imposed 

on other tenants. Lastly, plaintiffs allege the two tenant Board 

members were in a direct conflict of interest.

We have considered these arguments in light of the record and 

applicable legal standards. We affirm.

Our courts have long recognized a municipality's authority 

to enact rent control ordinances pursuant to its police powers. 

Inganamort v. Bor. of Fort Lee, 62 N.J. 521, 535-36 (1973). 

"However, all 'police-power legislation is subject to the 

constitutional limitation that it be not unreasonable, arbitrary, 

or capricious, and that the means selected by the legislative body 

shall have real and substantial relation to the object sought to 

be attained.'" N.J. Shore Builders Ass'n v. Twp. of Jackson, 199 

N.J. 38, 54-55 (2009) (quoting 515 Assocs. v. City of Newark, 132 

N.J. 180, 185 (1993)).
5 A-2340-15T4

Every "ordinance is entitled to a presumption of validity, 

and the 'party challenging the ordinance bears the burden of 

overcoming that presumption.'" 388 Route 22 Readington Realty 

Holdings, LLC v. Twp. of Readington, 221 N.J. 318, 339 (2015) 

(quoting Rumson Estates, Inc. v. Mayor & Council of Bor. of Fair 

Haven, 177 N.J. 338, 350 (2003)).

The presumption of validity "can be overcome 

only by proofs that preclude the possibility 

that there could have been any set of facts 

known" or assumed to be known by the drafters 

that would, in the exercise of reason and 

common sense, have allowed them to conclude 

that the enactment would advance the interest 

sought to be achieved.

[N.J. Shore Builders, supra, 199 N.J. at 55 

(quoting Hutton Park Gardens v. Town Council

of West Orange, 68 N.J. 543, 565 (1975)).]

"The job of a reviewing court is not to weigh the evidence for or 

against an enactment, or to evaluate the wisdom of the policy 

choice made." Id. at 55-56 (citing Hutton Park Gardens, supra, 

68 N.J. at 565).

The Supreme Court has adopted a three-part analysis for any 

challenge to a rent control ordinance. Orange Taxpayers Council 

v. City of Orange, 83 N.J. 246, 255 (1980). First, we examine 

"whether the legislative body could rationally have concluded that 

the unrestrained operation of the competitive market was not in 

the public interest." Ibid. (quoting Hutton Park Gardens, supra, 
6 A-2340-15T4

68 N.J. at 564). Second, we consider "whether the regulatory 

scheme when examined in its entirety permits a 'just and reasonable 

return' to the owners of rental properties." Ibid. (quoting Hutton 

Park Gardens, supra, 68 N.J. at 568-69). Lastly, we examine 

whether the means adopted to accomplish the ordinance are

rationally related to its purpose. Ibid.

Here, Jackson enacted rent control for the first time in 1973 

because of "exorbitant, speculative, and unwarranted" rental 

increases. In 2008, it enacted complete vacancy decontrol, but 

soon thereafter, in 2010, adopted the vacancy decontrol formula 

that permitted increases that were the lower of $125 or 7.5% of 

the highest rent in the park. Although not entirely clear from 

the record, this quick turnaround obviously reflected discontent 

with the consequences of total vacancy decontrol, and plaintiffs 

acknowledged, in their complaint, this partial vacancy decontrol 

formula adopted in 2010 was "the subject of much debate and 

negotiation" with Jackson.

Applying the three-part analysis mandated by Orange Taxpayers 

Council to these facts, Ordinance 08-15 reflects Jackson's 

continued determination that the "unrestrained operation of the 

competitive market was not in the public interest." Orange 

Taxpayers Council, supra, 83 N.J. at 255. Thus, limiting the 

amount of increase permitted when there was a vacancy, as opposed 
7 A-2340-15T4

to total vacancy decontrol, was "rationally related" to the purpose 

of rent control. Ibid. Plaintiffs never asserted or proved the 

increase permitted by Ordinance 08-15 denied them a fair rate of 

return. Ibid.

Rather, plaintiffs' argument is that the increases permitted 

by Ordinance 08-15 will never equalize the rents within a given 

mobile home park. Perhaps, but neither would the formula 

plaintiffs negotiated with Jackson in 2010, and to which they 

never objected. Nor is there any authority cited by plaintiffs 

that a rent control ordinance must, as one of its goals, move all 

rents closer to the same amount. In short, plaintiffs' 

dissatisfaction with Jackson's decision to scuttle the 2010 

negotiated partial vacancy decontrol provision in favor of a 

different formula does not prove the municipal action was 

arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable.

Plaintiffs' constitutional claims are also unavailing. They 

contend Ordinance 05-14 violates equal protection because it 

"subjects some similarly situated tenants to burdens not imposed 

on other members of the same class." In other words, those tenants 

at a higher rent within a given mobile home park who wish to sell 

their home are disadvantaged compared to owners at a lower rent 

who also might wish to sell.
8 A-2340-15T4

This argument lacks sufficient merit to warrant extensive 

discussion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E). We add only the following.

As the Court said many years ago:

The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment does not deprive the State of the 

power to classify in the adoption of police 

laws, but allows wide discretion, precluding 

only that done without any reasonable basis 

and therefore purely arbitrary. The 

constitutionality of a legislative 

classification is presumed, and one who 

assails the classification must carry the 

burden of showing its arbitrariness. A 

classification having some reasonable basis is 

not invalid merely because it is not made with 

mathematical nicety or because in practice it 

results in some inequality. And the 

classification must be upheld if any set of 

facts can reasonably be conceived to support 

it. In short, the equal protection clause 

forbids only invidious discrimination.

[Pleasure Bay Apartments v. City of Long 

Branch, 66 N.J. 79, 93 (1974) (quoting David 

v. Vesta Co., 45 N.J. 301, 314-15 (1965)).]

In Property Owners Association v. Township of North Bergen, 74 

N.J. 327, 330-32 (1977), a case plaintiffs cite, the owners of 

rental properties challenged an ordinance that created a special 

class of tenants, i.e., those over the age of sixty-five whose 

income did not exceed $5000. The Court held that while a class 

of "economically needy senior citizens is sound, proper and 

sustainable as a rational classification," "compell[ing] 

subsidization by landlords or by tenants who happen to live in an 
9 A-2340-15T4

apartment building with senior citizens is an improper and 

unconstitutional method of solving the problem." Id. at 339.

Here, however, Ordinance 05-14 creates no classification 

amongst mobile home park dwellers. It imposes the same limit on 

rental increases whenever there is a vacancy. The ordinance did 

not create whatever differences existed between two tenants in the 

same park prior to its enactment.3

We construe the arguments plaintiffs make in Points IV and V 

of their brief as asserting that Ordinance 05-14 violates 

substantive due process rights. The Court defined the issue in 

Hutton Park Gardens:

It follows . . . that legislative enactments 

regulating prices, including municipal rent 

control ordinances, are subject to the same 

narrow scope of review under principles of 

substantive due process as are other 

enactments under the police power: could the 

legislative body rationally have concluded 

that the enactment would serve the public 

interest without arbitrariness or 

discrimination?

In the context of price regulation the 

question is whether the legislative body could 

rationally have concluded that the 

unrestrained operation of the competitive 

market was not in the public interest.

[Hutton Park Gardens, supra, 68 N.J. at 563-

64 (citations omitted).]

 

3 We fail to understand, and plaintiffs do not explain, why some 

of these disparities in rent were not the natural effect of total 

vacancy decontrol, which existed in Jackson between 2008 and 2010.
10 A-2340-15T4

In order to prevail, plaintiffs needed to prove that no set 

of facts would rationally support a conclusion that the enactment 

of Ordinance 05-14 was in the public interest. Id. at 565. 

Plaintiffs failed to prove that Jackson's continued decision to 

curb "exorbitant, speculative, and unwarranted" rent increases in 

the mobile home market that existed forty years ago, by continuing 

rent control but permitting limited vacancy decontrol, lacked any 

rational basis.

Lastly, plaintiffs argue that members of the Board improperly 

influenced passage of the ordinances at issue. They claim that 

as residents of a mobile home park, Miller and Schleckser had 

inherent personal conflicts of interest with the other tenants in 

mobile home parks. This argument also lacks sufficient merit to 

warrant discussion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E).

Plaintiffs do not claim that Miller and Schleckser 

inappropriately exercised their powers as Board members, for 

example, on applications that came before the Board filed by 

plaintiffs or other mobile home park owners. Moreover, the 

ordinances were passed by the municipal council, not the Board. 

Plaintiffs also provide no authority supporting the proposition 

that Miller and Schleckser were required to forfeit their rights 

as citizens to speak freely and petition their municipal government 
11 A-2340-15T4

simply because they benefitted from the proposed changes or were 

members of the Board.

Affirmed.