Opinion ID: 3012414
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Should a Court Reviewing an FHAA Reasonable

Text: Accommodations Challenge to an Adverse Decision from a Local Land Use Board Limit Its Review to the Administrative Record? Although we have not previously addressed the issue of the proper scope of review for a federal court reviewing an FHAA reasonable accommodations challenge to a decision of a local land use board, we are convinced that federal courts should limit their review to the materials that were presented to the local land use board, except in 10 circumstances where the board prevents applicants from presenting sufficient information. To support its conclusion that a reviewing court should not look outside the record when reviewing an FHAA reasonable accommodations challenge to a local land use decision, the District Court cited Keys Youth Services, Inc. v. City of Olathe, 75 F. Supp. 2d 1235 (D. Kan. 1999), which was later affirmed in relevant part by the Tenth Circuit, 248 F.3d 1267 (10th Cir. 2001). In Keys Youth Services, a nonprofit organization (Keys) sought a variance that it needed to establish a group home in a single-family home in Olathe, Kansas for ten youths who had been abused, neglected, or abandoned. After the local land use board twice denied Keys's application for a variance, Keys sued in federal court, alleging that the board had violated the FHAA's reasonable accommodations requirement when it refused to grant the variance. The district court granted judgment as a matter of law to the City of Olathe on the reasonable accommodations claim because it found that Keys had failed to present evidence to the local zoning board that the requested accommodation was necessary. While the court concluded that Keys might have been able to show that a minimum of 10 residents was required for its group home's financial viability, it found that Keys had failed to present any evidence of this necessity to the local zoning board. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment on the reasonable accommodations claim based on the principle that Olathe cannot be liable for refusing to grant a reasonable and necessary accommodation if the City never knew the accommodation was in fact necessary. Keys Youth Services, 248 F.3d at 1275. The court held that plaintiffs should be required to present all of the evidence they have that would justify why an accommodation is necessary under the FHAA to the local land use board, and that a reviewing court should not look outside the administrative record. The Fourth Circuit adopted the same position in Bryant Woods Inn, Inc. v. Howard County, 124 F.3d 597 (4th Cir. 1997), an FHAA reasonable accommodations challenge brought by a non-profit group home for adults suffering 11 from Alzheimer's Disease that was seeking to expand its number of residents from 8 to 15. In Bryant Woods, the court refused to look beyond the administrative record and affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Howard County because the non-profit group had failed to present evidence to the local land use board that the expansion was necessary within the meaning of the FHAA. Id. at 605-06. We join the Tenth and Fourth Circuits in holding that courts hearing reasonable accommodations challenges should ordinarily limit their review to the administrative record. This rule permits local land use boards to have the initial opportunity to provide reasonable accommodations to facilitate housing for the handicapped; it also comports with the tradition in American law that land use decisions are quintessentially local in nature. See, e.g. , FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742, 768 n.30 (1982) ([R]egulation of land use is perhaps the quintessential state activity.); Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1, 13 (1974) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (noting that zoning may indeed be the most essential function performed by local government). We too have recognized in similar contexts the value of local authorities resolving such matters on their own without interference from the federal courts. See Acierno v. Mitchell, 6 F.3d 970 (3d Cir. 1993) (stating that courts should not insert themselves in delicate area[s], subject to local regulation until local authorities have had the opportunity to apply authoritatively their specific regulations). Notwithstanding the foregoing, we point out that it may be necessary for a court reviewing an FHAA reasonable accommodations claim to look outside of the administrative record when a land use board either intentionally or inadvertently prevents an applicant from presenting the evidence necessary to support an FHAA reasonable accommodations claim.5 Lapid asserts that the Board's (Text continued on page 14) _________________________________________________________________ 5. As is clear from the text, our holding that courts reviewing reasonable accommodations challenges to local land use decisions brought under the FHAA should ordinarily limit their review to the administrative record assumes that plaintiffs who bring reasonable accommodations claims 12 against localities must usually first seek redress through variance applications to the local land use authority. That holding is therefore in tension with some district court decisions from within this Circuit (including one that we affirmed summarily) that hold that in some circumstances a plaintiff need not first apply for a variance in order to bring an FHAA reasonable accommodations claim. See Horizon House Dev. Servs., Inc. v. Township of Upper Southampton , 804 F. Supp. 683 (E.D. Pa. 1992) (allowing a plaintiff to bring an FHAA reasonable accommodations challenge to a local zoning ordinance without first seeking a variance from a local land use board), judgment aff 'd without op., 995 F.2d 217 (3d Cir. 1993); Assisted Living Assocs. of Moorestown, L.L.C. v. Moorestown Township, 996 F. Supp. 409, 425-28 (D.N.J. 1998) (same). But see Marriott Senior Living Servs., Inc. v. Springfield Township, 78 F. Supp. 2d 376, 385-86 (E.D. Pa. 1999) (While strict compliance with every local ordinance or regulation is not required . . . the applicant must show that under the circumstances it has afforded the appropriate local authority a reasonable opportunity to consider the project in some final form.); Community Interactions -- Bucks County, Inc. v. Township of Bensalem, 1994 WL 702943, 8 A.D.D. 276 (E.D. Pa. 1994) (dismissing an FHAA suit because the plaintiff failed to seek a variance with the local land use board). In the cases where district courts heard FHAA claims without requiring the plaintiff to have first sought a variance with a local land use authority, the reviewing court necessarily had to consider materials from outside the nonexistent administrative record. Although we are not bound by the district court cases cited above, including the case that we summarily affirmed, (summary affirmances are non-precedential, see 3d Cir. I.O.P. 6.2.1), and we are not presented with and do not reach questions of ripeness or exhaustion in this case, we note that the position adopted by the Seventh and Eighth Circuits on when plaintiffs bringing FHAA reasonable accommodations challenges against localities must first apply for variances with local land use boards rationalizes these cases (which allowed plaintiffs to bring reasonable accommodations claims without first seeking a variance) with the necessary implication of our holding today (that most reasonable accommodations claims must first be presented to local land use boards). In United States v. Village of Palatine , 37 F.3d 1230 (7th Cir. 1994), the Seventh Circuit reviewed an FHAA reasonable accommodations challenge to a local ordinance for which the plaintiff had not sought a variance. The court held that the claim was not ripe, and that in general a city must be afforded the opportunity to make the requested accommodation. Id. at 1233. However, the court identified two exceptions where the claim would be ripe even if the plaintiff had not 13 denial of its request to bifurcate its variance and site plan applications was unreasonable and in violation of New Jersey's Municipal Land Use Law, and prevented it from presenting materials relevant to its reasonable accommodations claim. In particular, Lapid argues that it had a statutory right to bifurcate its applications at any point during the application review procedure pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-76(b), which provides that [t]he developer may elect to submit a separate application requesting approval of the variance and a subsequent application for any required approval of a subdivision, site plan or conditional use. Therefore, contends Lapid, the District Court should have granted Lapid's request to supplement the administrative record. The Board responds that its denial of Lapid's variance and site plan applications at the March 24 meeting was merely the result of Lapid's refusal to consent to an extension on both applications, which it had the power to do pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-76(c). The Board further submits that even if it had granted the request to bifurcate, it could not have meaningfully evaluated Lapid's variance application without reference to the specific problems that the Board had identified with the site plan application. In other words, the Board argues that Lapid essentially forced it to review its site plan application as it existed at the March 24 meeting by not consenting to an extension on both the variance and site plan applications. Therefore, the argument continues, Lapid cannot now complain that the Board prevented it from presenting all of the information necessary to support its reasonable accommodations claim. _________________________________________________________________ first sought a variance from the local land use board: (1) if the claim were a challenge to the variance application procedure itself; and (2) if the variance application process was demonstrably futile. Id. at 1234. The Village of Palatine court also limited the ripeness rule that it formed to reasonable accommodations claims and noted thatif the plaintiff 's claim were of discriminatory intent, rather than failure to make a reasonable accommodation, th[e] claim might well be presently ripe even though [the plaintiff] has not sought a special use approval. Id. at 1233 n.3. The Eighth Circuit has followed the Seventh Circuit's ripeness rule for FHAA reasonable accommodations claims. See Oxford House-A v. City of Univ. City, 87 F.3d 1022, 1024-25 (8th Cir. 1996). 14 New Jersey's Municipal Land Use Law provides that local zoning boards must act on an application for a variance or site plan approval within 120 days of when a complete application is submitted. If a zoning board fails to act within the statutory period, the application is deemed granted by force of law. See N.J.S.A. 40:55D-73(b). However, an applicant may consent to the extension of this 120-day period. See N.J.S.A. 40:55D-73(b); N.J.S.A. 40:55D-76(c). In the present case, Lapid's counsel agreed to extend the Board's deadline once to April 1, 1999. Instead of offering to extend the deadline again, Lapid sought to bifurcate its applications and to require the Board to vote on the variance application before April 1 or to have it approved by force of law. Lapid contends that by requesting to bifurcate its application, it was offering to extend the time limit for the site plan application, and resting its case only on the variance application. Because of New Jersey's statutory scheme governing the evaluation of variance applications, however, we agree that the Board could not have meaningfully considered the variance application without reference to the specific problems that it had identified in the site plan application and Lapid's proposed solutions to these problems, and that the offer to extend time for consideration of the site plan application was therefore essentially meaningless. The section of the MLUL that governs applications for use variances, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d), requires an applicant to establish that certain positive and negative criteria are fulfilled in order to have the variance granted. See Smart SMR of N.Y., Inc. v. Borough of Fair Lawn Bd. of Adjustment, 704 A.2d 1271, 1278 (N.J. 1998). To establish the positive criteria, the applicant generally must show  `special reasons' for the grant of the variance. Sica v. Bd. of Adjustment of the Township of Wall, 603 A.2d 30, 32 (N.J. 1992). The negative criteria require proof that the variance `can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good' and that it will not substantially impair the intent and purpose of the zone plan and zoning ordinance. Id. (quoting N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d)). When the variance application seeks permission for an inherently beneficial 15 use, as it does in this case, the application presumptively satisfies the positive criteria. See Smart SMR , 704 A.2d at 1278. The New Jersey Supreme Court has instructed that when evaluating a variance application for an inherently beneficial use, a zoning board must identify andweigh the positive and negative criteria and determine whether, on balance, the grant of the variance would cause a substantial detriment to the public good. Id. at 1279 (quoting Sica, 603 A.2d at 37). The potential negative criteria relating to the use variance that Lapid sought in this case are directly related to its proposed site plan. In denying the application, the Board relied on concerns about traffic safety and emergency vehicle access. These issues certainly go to the question whether the variance would cause substantial detriment to the public good. N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d). Further, the size of the proposed Facility, another expressed concern, goes to the question whether granting the variance would substantially impair the intent and the purpose of the zone plan and zoning ordinance. N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d). Therefore, even assuming that it was error to deny the bifurcation, we do not see how the Board could have considered the negative statutory criteria that it was required to consider without reference to the site plan application as it existed when the Board denied the application.6 Lapid argues that a zoning board can consider a variance application with stipulated or hypothetical conditions on a site plan that will be considered subsequent to the approval of the variance application. To be sure, this may be feasible and desirable in some cases. We do not see, however, how it would have been feasible in the present case. Most importantly, we agree with the District Court that based on a reading of the Zoning Board's hearing on the matter, it appears that Lapid-Laurel was given a full and _________________________________________________________________ 6. We do not address the question whether the Board committed procedural error under the MLUL that would require its decision to be reversed. That would be an issue appropriate for direct appeal to the New Jersey courts, and, at all events, Lapid did not present it to the District Court or this court. 16 fair opportunity to present its case before the Zoning Board. Over the course of four hearings, Lapid . . . presented five witnesses and various exhibits. Indeed, as the District Court noted, [p]laintiff 's counsel even conceded at oral argument that the Board in no way prevented plaintiff from presenting any and all evidence it wished to advance. Therefore, we do not think that the Board's denial of Lapid's request to bifurcate its applications shows that the Board prevented Lapid from presenting the necessary evidence to support its FHAA claim, nor does it provide a sufficient reason for this court to look outside the administrative record when reviewing Lapid's reasonable accommodations claim.