Opinion ID: 1901249
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Summary of the Remedial Stage

Text: The remedies authorized today are intended to achieve compliance with the Constitution and the Mount Laurel obligations without interminable trials and appeals. Municipalities will not be able to appeal a trial court's determination that its ordinance is invalid, wait several years for adjudication of that appeal, and then, if unsuccessful, adopt another inadequate ordinance followed by more litigation and subsequent appeals. We intend by our remedy to conclude in one proceeding, with a single appeal, all questions involved. There will be either a judgment of compliance (from which a municipality that acted under protest may appeal with or without stays) signifying the trial court's conclusions that there are land use regulations and affirmative devices in place conforming to the constitutional obligation; or there will be a judgment containing one or more of many orders available in the event of non-compliance along with the action of the municipality conforming to such orders. On appeal, the appellate court will have before it everything needed to determine fully the issues. It may ultimately turn out on appeal, of course, that the trial court's initial determination that the ordinance before it failed to comply with Mount Laurel was incorrect. In that case, all of the steps subsequently taken by the municipality to comply at the trial level may have been wasted energy. Our requirement of this procedure, however, is based upon our belief that much more time has been (and would continue to be) wasted, and much less compliance effected, as a result of the multiple appeals that have been allowed in the past. In the most unusual circumstances stays may be granted either by the trial or appellate courts and interlocutory appeals taken (or attempted); furthermore, there may even be circumstances in which the trial court declines to handle the litigation in one package. It may, for instance, enter as final judgment (upon certification pursuant to R. 4:42-2) what would otherwise be an interlocutory order invalidating the ordinance before it. It should ordinarily do so only where it entertains substantial doubts as to the correctness of its position and concludes that on balance an immediate appeal is clearly preferable to any procedures that might otherwise follow the interlocutory judgment of invalidation. We intend to administer the Mount Laurel doctrine effectively. It is complex. Its administration is important not simply to those seeking lower income housing, but to the municipalities as well. We have no desire to deprive municipalities of their right to litigate each and every determination affecting their interests, but we believe that the present procedures, allowing numerous appeals, retrials, and ordinarily resulting in substantial delay in meeting the obligation, do not strike the proper balance. While we cannot totally satisfy both the plaintiffs' and defendants' interests, we think the procedures required above come closer than those that have existed in the past to achieving a just balance of all the polices involved. That balance also requires modification of the role of res judicata in these cases. Judicial determinations of compliance with the fair share obligation or of invalidity are not binding under ordinary rules of res judicata since circumstances obviously change. In Mount Laurel cases, however, judgments of compliance should provide that measure of finality suggested in the Municipal Land Use Law, which requires the reexamination and amendment of land use regulations every six years. Compliance judgments in these cases therefore shall have res judicata effect, despite changed circumstances, for a period of six years, the period to begin with the entry of the judgment by the trial court. [44] In this way, municipalities can enjoy the repose that the res judicata doctrine intends, free of litigious interference with the normal planning process.