Opinion ID: 1901249
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Urban League of Greater New Brunswick v. Borough of Carteret

Text: This case provides a fitting conclusion to our opinion in these matters. The action was started in 1974. Plaintiffs proved beyond any question that there was a present actual need for low and moderate income housing in the 23 Middlesex County municipalities initially joined as defendants and that this need would become overwhelming in the future. They proved a pattern of exclusionary zoning that was clear. They portrayed a county exploding with growth, providing jobs for all, and promising even more in the future, including employment for low and moderate income families, a county where the opportunity for lower income housing shrank faster than its need grew. Armed with substantial documentation of the need, the exclusionary practices, and the obvious ability of the municipalities to absorb any reasonably calculated fair share of the region's need for lower income housing, the trial court conscientiously attempted to determine the precise regional need and its allocation among the municipalities. In the process it effectively settled the matter as to 11 of the municipalities that have apparently satisfactorily modified their ordinances to comply with Mount Laurel. As to the remaining 11 (one was dismissed as being fully developed), it entered an order that, while general, included substantially all of the arsenal of devices available as requirements imposed upon those municipalities to ensure compliance with their constitutional obligation. As noted later, we disagree in certain important respects with the trial court's decision, but it is otherwise a basically solid decision based on an opinion that rings with the true sound of the constitutional obligation. The recitation of the facts, 142 N.J. Super. at 20-35, convinces us of the essential correctness of the court's determinations of the need for housing, the exclusionary practices that contributed to that need, and the remedies to satisfy it, as well as the necessity for judicial action in this area. Before the appeal was disposed of, we rendered our decision in Madison. The impact of the holding and the spirit of Madison on Mount Laurel cases is nowhere better illustrated than in this case. The Appellate Division's reversal, understandable in view of Madison, delivers a clear message to the trial bench in Mount Laurel cases, and the message is hands off. Taking Madison and some further restrictive language in Pascack as its guide, the Appellate Division read our language in Mount Laurel and Madison suggesting that a county was probably too small to comprise a region and held that a county could never be a region. The effect of this holding was not to increase the fair share of the municipalities (as might be the case with the expansion of this particular region) but to dismiss plaintiffs' claims. The Appellate Division further held that our language in Madison relieving the trial court of the obligation to determine a precise numerical fair share for defendant-municipalities meant that the trial court was prohibited from making any such finding or imposing any numerical fair share in its judgment. And to complete the process, it further held that in any event, it was inappropriate to impose any requirements until the municipalities had had an opportunity to act without judicial supervision. As far as the municipalities are concerned, the lesson of all of this litigation is that the Mount Laurel obligation is a matter between them and their conscience. If, after eight years, the judiciary is powerless to do anything to encourage lower income housing in this protracted litigation because of the rules we have devised, then either those rules should be changed or enforcement of the obligation abandoned.
On July 23, 1974, plaintiffs (the Urban League of Greater New Brunswick and 7 individuals representing themselves and others similarly situated) brought this action against 23 of the 25 municipalities in Middlesex County. [72] Plaintiffs alleged that the zoning ordinances of these municipalities failed to provide realistic opportunities for low and moderate income housing as required by Mount Laurel and were discriminatory against blacks in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The latter federal claim was rejected by both courts below and it does not appear that it is being pressed before this Court. The defendants responded with a four-pronged procedural challenge to the suit as brought, alleging that plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, were improperly joined as a class, and had failed to exhaust the administrative remedies available to them, and that the defendant municipalities were also joined improperly. The first three claims were rejected by the trial court at an early stage of the proceedings, [73] and a pretrial hearing was conducted on the issue of severance. After hearing testimony from plaintiffs, defendants and amicus Public Advocate, the trial court denied the motion for severance. It determined that since plaintiffs were alleging that defendants (except for Perth Amboy and New Brunswick) were collectively responsible for county-wide exclusion of lower income residents, proof of such allegations required the joint presence of all defendants. The trial court also concluded that a total severance would unduly burden plaintiffs [74] and might impair the court's ability to design individual municipal remedies for a regional problem. However, the court also concluded that certain proofs required individual treatment, in particular, proofs regarding the specific provisions of each ordinance being attacked and the individual justifications each municipality might offer for its failure to provide lower income housing opportunities. In an effort to accommodate these and other competing considerations, the trial court ordered a bifurcated trial. During the first part of the trial, plaintiffs submitted proofs on the appropriateness of Middlesex County as a lower income housing allocation region, on the inability of individual plaintiffs to find adequate lower income housing in Middlesex County, on the general need for lower income housing in Middlesex County, and on the exclusionary nature of zoning in the county as a whole outside of Perth Amboy and New Brunswick. [75] Based on these proofs, the trial court concluded that there was an unmet need for lower income housing in the County, that the exclusionary zoning practices of the defendant municipalities played a large role in preventing this need from being met, and that Middlesex County is an appropriate region for lower income housing allocation purposes. [76] At the second part of the trial, plaintiffs isolated five aspects of the municipalities' ordinances that they claimed to be exclusionary:

(2) Cranbury and South Plainfield prohibit any new multi-family housing. Monroe permits multi-family units only in its retirement community. Carteret, East Brunswick, Edison, Jamesburg, Middlesex, Milltown, North Brunswick, Old Bridge, Piscataway, Plainsboro, Sayreville, South Amboy, South Brunswick, South River, and Woodbridge place restrictions on multi-family housing. b. Restrictions on development that are not necessary for health and safety or required by good planning practices: e.g., low densities per acre, excessive lot sizes, excessive frontages, and excessive square footage for buildings themselves. Plaintiffs claim all the municipalities now before the Court have numerous instances of such excessive standards. c. Bedroom restrictions: (1) North Brunswick and Plainsboro placed limitations on the number of two bedroom units allowed and prohibit larger units.

d. Overzoning for industry and too much large-lot zoning: (1) Cranbury, East Brunswick, Edison, Monroe, North Brunswick, Old Bridge, Plainsboro, Sayreville, South Amboy, South Brunswick and Spotswood are overzoned for industry up to as much as 700 percent over projected demand. e. The discretionary authority vested in municipal authorities to discourage housing developments: (1) Edison's cluster options are subject to the discretion of municipal officials. (2) East Brunswick's Planning Board has the discretionary authority to assess improvement fees against builders. On May 4, 1976, two years after the complaint was filed and after a trial that lasted two full months, Judge Furman handed down a two part decision. 142 N.J. Super. 11 (Ch.Div. 1976). First, he divided the defendant municipalities into three categories: a. All claims against the Township of Dunellen were unconditionally dismissed because the court found Dunellen to be a developed community outside the scope of Mount Laurel. Plaintiffs did not appeal this dismissal. b. Claims against 11 communities (Carteret, Helmetta, Highland Park, Jamesburg, Metuchen, Middlesex, Milltown, South Amboy, South River, Spotswood and Woodbridge) were dismissed, conditioned upon the adoption of certain zoning amendments by these municipalities. The court noted that these municipalities were substantially built up, though not quite developed for Mount Laurel purposes. The plaintiffs agreed at trial to these conditional dismissals. c. The zoning practices of the remaining 11 municipalities (Cranbury, East Brunswick, Old Bridge (formerly Madison), Monroe, North Brunswick, Plainsboro, South Brunswick, Sayreville, Edison, Piscataway and South Plainfield) were found to be in violation of Mount Laurel. In order to remedy these violations the court ordered each of the municipalities to provide a realistic opportunity for the construction of the fair share of the lower income housing allocation determined by the court. The trial court determined numerical fair share allocations for the 11 municipalities found to be in violation of Mount Laurel. 142 N.J. Super. at 35-38. It accepted plaintiffs' suggestion that Middlesex County was the appropriate housing region for remedial purposes. It concluded that each of the municipalities should accommodate low and moderate income people in proportions equal to that of the County as a whole  15 percent low income and 19 percent moderate income. After finding the prospective low and moderate income housing need of the County through 1985 to be 18,697 units, the trial court allocated 4,030 of these units to remedy imbalances in the provision of low and moderate income housing among the 11 municipalities themselves as follows: Cranbury 18 Piscataway -0- East Brunswick 1,316 Plainsboro -0- Edison 1,292 Sayreville 328 Monroe 23 South Brunswick 156 North Brunswick 180 South Plainfield 416 Old Bridge 301 The remaining 14,667 units of the County's lower income housing need were allocated equally among the 11 municipalities, i.e., 1,333 units per municipality. All units allocated to each municipality were to be apportioned as 45 percent low income housing and 55 percent moderate income housing. 142 N.J. Super. at 37. The trial court emphasized that these 11 municipalities were required to do more than just refrain from zoning out their fair share allocation of lower income housing. Affirmative steps to encourage the construction of lower income housing, such as utilizing mandatory set-asides and density bonuses and pursuing federal and state housing subsidies, were required. All but 4 of these 11 municipalities (Old Bridge, North Brunswick, Edison and Sayreville), appealed. On appeal, the municipalities claimed that the trial court erred by using Middlesex County as a region for fair share purposes. They maintained that this Court specifically rejected the use of counties as regions in both Mount Laurel I and Madison. This claim was pressed most vigorously by the townships on the outskirts of the County, particularly Plainsboro and South Plainfield, who argued that their fair share allocations could not be properly arrived at without a consideration of the housing needs and obligations of municipalities in adjacent counties. The following individual defenses were raised by the seven municipalities on appeal: a. South Plainfield claimed it was developed and therefore not bound by Mount Laurel.

The Appellate Division, in an opinion reported at 170 N.J. Super. 461 (1979), reversed the trial court's order allocating to the 11 municipalities a specific fair share quota of lower income housing. The Appellate Division based its decision on the error it found in the trial court's decision using Middlesex County as the appropriate housing region. The court emphasized that this Court in both Mount Laurel I and Madison had criticized the use of counties as regions, and that the trial court in Madison had specifically refused to use Middlesex County as the housing region for Madison Township (now Old Bridge). Id. at 475. The court concluded that since the plaintiffs had failed to prove an appropriate housing region, they could not have established that the defendant municipalities' zoning ordinances were impermissibly exclusionary. Id. at 476-77. The Appellate Division reversed the trial court's order completely and dismissed the plaintiffs' claims. [77] We believe that the Appellate Division erred, both in its interpretation of the lower court's opinion and in its failure to remand the case to that court for further proceedings. It is clear from a careful reading of Judge Furman's detailed opinion that he did not intend to use Middlesex County as the region but simply took advantage of the simplicity of county boundaries in designing a fair share remedy in the case before him. Furthermore, while we noted in Madison that counties did not appear to be realistically suitable for use as regions, we did not preclude their use for that purpose, 72 N.J. at 537, making a summary reversal inappropriate. We therefore reverse the Appellate Division's judgment and remand for a full fair share hearing involving the seven municipalities now before this Court. [78] Our assumption is that Judge Furman, the author of a definition of region accepted by this Court that clearly would encompass more than Middlesex County, never intended to limit the measurement of housing needs by the boundaries of this particular County whose housing market is so clearly part of a larger region. Unfortunately it is impossible from the decision to determine precisely, or even generally, how the trial court arrived at its figure of 18,697 as the number of units of lower income housing needed by 1985. If that figure represented a portion of the larger region's need, then it might be satisfactory; if, however, it was truly a calculation based solely upon the consideration of Middlesex County, then it might be subject to serious challenge. Again, we do not mean to exclude the possibility that a county might be suitable for characterization as a region under certain circumstances, and we would be reluctant to upset any trial court's conscientious use of same unless convinced that the delay in meeting the need for lower income housing occasioned by such a reversal was clearly justified by the probable difference in figures that would result on remand. Here, however, there is no way of telling, other than the prior pronouncements of Judge Furman, whether Middlesex was viewed as the region, or simply, as suggested above, as part of a larger region, isolated for the purpose of devising a remedy. Once the region's need is determined, it is not advisable to allocate that need so as to equalize the proportion of lower income units in each municipality, nor to attempt to make that proportion the same as that found in the County. At one step in its provision of a remedy, the trial court did precisely that. The effect of such a remedy, of course, would be to make one municipality a demographic mirror image of another. That is not the purpose of Mount Laurel. Nor is there any justification for allocating a particular regional need equally among municipalities simply because they have enough land to accommodate such equal division. There may be factors that render such a determination defensible, but they would have to be strong factors, and certainly not the simple fact that there is enough land there. The issue in these cases is the overall group of factors that must be considered, all subsumed in the word suitability. Those factors have been described and need not be repeated here.
In view of the uncertainty in the selection of regions and the calculation of regional need, as well as the error in allocating that need, we cannot accept the trial court's resolution of this matter. As already indicated, however, we believe that the dismissal by the Appellate Division was inappropriate. On remand there need be no trial concerning non-compliance with the Mount Laurel obligation (unless the municipality's land use ordinance has been substantially amended), see supra at 199 n. 1, for that has already been amply demonstrated. All that is at issue is the determination of region, fair share and allocation and, thereafter, revision of the land use ordinances and adoption of affirmative measures to afford the realistic opportunity for the requisite lower income housing. Calculation of the prospective need will undoubtedly be projected beyond 1985, but the precise outside date will be left to the discretion of the trial court. The trial court shall consider the existing record, and may also accept further proofs regarding changes in population, development, and land use regulation. It may appoint such experts as are required to assist it in determining region and the fair share allocation plan, and a master to aid the municipality in revising the ordinances and the court in passing on same. We leave the issue of continued joinder of the seven municipalities to the court's discretion, noting only that there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to consider. See supra at 254-255. In determining fair share, the trial court shall review the SDGP's characterization of each of the municipalities before it. Our own examination of the Plan indicates that each includes growth areas and that some of them consist entirely of such an area. As previously stated, determination of fair share must take into consideration, where it is a fact, the inclusion within particular municipalities of non-growth areas where, according to the plan, growth is to be discouraged. See supra at 331 and 212. We believe that Plainsboro, Cranbury, South Brunswick, East Brunswick and Monroe all contain some non-growth as well as growth areas. The judgment of the Appellate Division is reversed, and the matter is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.