Opinion ID: 2339947
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Overview of Act; Summary of the Court's Decision

Text: The Act that we review and sustain today represents a substantial effort by the other branches of government to vindicate the Mount Laurel constitutional obligation. This is not ordinary legislation. It deals with one of the most difficult constitutional, legal and social issues of our day  that of providing suitable and affordable housing for citizens of low and moderate income. In Mount Laurel II, we did not minimize the difficulty of this effort  we stressed only its paramount importance  and we do not minimize its difficulty today. But we believe that if the Act before us works in accordance with its expressed intent, it will assure a realistic opportunity for lower income housing in all those parts of the state where sensible planning calls for such housing. Most objections raised against the Act assume that it will not work, or construe its provisions so that it cannot work, and attribute both to the legislation and to the Council a mission, nowhere expressed in the Act, of sabotaging the Mount Laurel doctrine. On the contrary, we must assume that the Council will pursue the vindication of the Mount Laurel obligation with determination and skill. If it does, that vindication should be far preferable to vindication by the courts, and may be far more effective. Instead of depending on chance  the chance that a builder will sue  the location and extent of lower income housing will depend on sound, comprehensive statewide planning, developed by the Council and aided by the State Development and Redevelopment Plan (SDRP) to be prepared by the newly formed State Planning Commission pursuant to L. 1985, c. 395. Conceptually, the Fair Housing Act is similar to CAFRA (Coastal Area Facility Review Act, N.J.S.A. 13:19-1 to -21), the Pinelands Act (Pinelands Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 13:18A-1 to -29), and the Meadowlands Act (Hackensack Meadowlands Reclamation & Development Act, N.J.S.A. 13:17-1 to -86), in its regional approach to questions of appropriate land use. Its statewide scope is an extensive departure from the unplanned and uncoordinated municipal growth of the past. The Council will determine the total need for lower income housing, the regional portion of that need, and the standards for allocating to each municipality its fair share. The Council is charged by law with that responsibility, imparting to it the legitimacy and presumed expertise that derives from selection by the Governor and confirmation by the Senate, in accordance with the will of the Legislature. Instead of varying and potentially inconsistent definitions of total need, regions, regional need, and fair share that can result from the case-by-case determinations of courts involved in isolated litigation, an overall plan for the entire state is envisioned, with definitions and standards that will have the kind of consistency that can result only when full responsibility and power are given to a single entity. Municipalities will have both the means and motives to determine, using the same standards, what is required of them, what their fair share is, and what combination of ordinances and other measures will achieve that fair share. The means consist of the rules, criteria, and guidelines of the Council, along with the Council's determination that the municipal fair share plan complies, or, if it does not, what steps must be taken. The motives are the municipalities' strong preference to exercise their zoning powers independently and voluntarily as compared to their open hostility to court-ordered rezoning; the motives also include the municipalities' desire to avoid such litigation, a goal best achieved by voluntary compliance through conformance with the standards adopted by the Council. The Council's work is intended to produce ordinances and other measures that will fit together as part of a statewide plan, among other things, a plan that provides a real chance, a realistic likelihood, Mount Laurel II, 92 N.J. at 222, for the construction or rehabilitation of lower income housing. And where necessary, financing may be available to help, for the Act includes appropriations and other financial measures that will provide needed subsidies. §§ 20, 21, 33. The Act recognizes that zoning and planning for lower income housing is a long-range task, that goals must be changed periodically, revisions made accordingly, and results regularly evaluated. This continuing nature of the planning process is given explicit recognition in the Act. See, e.g., sections 6a, 7. When supplemented by the SDRP, the Act amounts to an overall plan for the state, rationally conceived, to be implemented through governmental devices that hold the promise that the outcome  the provision of lower income housing  will substantially conform to the plan. It is a plan administered by an administrative agency with a broad grant of general power, providing the flexibility necessary for such an undertaking; it is a plan that will necessarily reflect competing needs and interests resolved through value judgments whose public acceptability is based on their legislative source. Most important of all to the success of the plan is this public acceptance and, hence, the municipal acceptance that it should command. That is the general outline of how this Act and the Council created by it are intended to operate, and the results they are intended to achieve. It is a description at variance with the prediction of some who oppose the Act. Our opinion and our rulings today, significantly reducing the courts' function in this field, are based on this outline, based, that is, on the Council's ability, through the Act, to approach the results described above. If, however, as predicted by its opponents, the Act, despite the intention behind it, achieves nothing but delay, the judiciary will be forced to resume its appropriate role. This Act represents an unprecedented willingness by the Governor and the Legislature to face the Mount Laurel issue after unprecedented decisions by this Court. [2] Even with ordinary legislation, the rule is firmly settled that a law is presumed constitutional. Mahwah Township. v. Bergen County Bd. of Taxation, 98 N.J. 268, 282 (1985); Paul Kimball Hosp. v. Brick Township., 86 N.J. 429, 446-47 (1981); Brunetti v. New Milford, 68 N.J. 576, 599 (1975); Harvey v. Essex County Bd. of Freeholders, 30 N.J. 381, 388 (1959). The particularly strong deference owed to the Legislature relative to this extraordinary legislation is suggested in the following language from Mount Laurel II: [A] brief reminder of the judicial role in this sensitive area is appropriate, since powerful reasons suggest, and we agree, that the matter is better left to the Legislature. We act first and foremost because the Constitution of our State requires protection of the interests involved and because the Legislature has not protected them. We recognize the social and economic controversy (and its political consequences) that has resulted in relatively little legislative action in this field. We understand the enormous difficulty of achieving a political consensus that might lead to significant legislation enforcing the constitutional mandate better than we can, legislation that might completely remove this Court from those controversies. But enforcement of constitutional rights cannot await a supporting political consensus. So while we have always preferred legislative to judicial action in this field, we shall continue  until the Legislature acts  to do our best to uphold the constitutional obligation that underlies the Mount Laurel doctrine. That is our duty. We may not build houses, but we do enforce the Constitution. We note that there has been some legislative initiative in this field. We look forward to more. The new Municipal Land Use Law explicitly recognizes the obligation of municipalities to zone with regional consequences in mind, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-28(d); it also recognizes the work of the Division of State and Regional Planning in the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), in creating the State Development Guide Plan (1980) (SDGP), which plays an important part in our decisions today. Our deference to these legislative and executive initiatives can be regarded as a clear signal of our readiness to defer further to more substantial actions. The judicial role, however, which could decrease as a result of legislative and executive action, necessarily will expand to the extent that we remain virtually alone in this field. In the absence of adequate legislative and executive help, we must give meaning to the constitutional doctrine in the cases before us through our own devices, even if they are relatively less suitable. That is the basic explanation of our decisions today. [92 N.J. 158, at 212-14 (footnote omitted).] The basic explanation of today 's decision is the Act  this substantial occupation of the field by the Governor and the Legislature. They have responded. It appears to be a significant response. It is a response more than sufficient to trigger our readiness to defer. Id. We hold that the Act is constitutional and order that all of the cases pending before us be transferred to the Council. Those transfers, however, shall be subject to such conditions as the trial courts may find necessary to preserve the municipalities' ability to satisfy their Mount Laurel obligation. See infra at 61-63. In some of the cases before us, including several where a builder's remedy was imminent, transfer will cause a substantial delay in ordinance revisions and ultimate lower income housing construction. It is possible that during this time development might occur, making future construction of lower income housing impossible, or significantly less probable. For instance, where there are very few tracts suitable for lower income housing, industrial, commercial, or non-lower income housing development on them could end the municipality's future ability to meet its Mount Laurel obligation; similarly, where infrastructure capacity is limited, sewerage or other resources may be exhausted, precluding future Mount Laurel development. The objective of these conditions is to prevent such use of scarce resources. The balance of our opinion continues with the facts and the procedural status of the argued cases (Part II), a fuller description of the Act (Part III), a determination of the Act's constitutionality (Part IV), an analysis of the motions now before us to transfer matters to the Council (Part V), interpretation of certain sections of the Act (Part VI), an outline of possible conditions to be imposed on the transferral of these matters, to be determined by the trial courts on remand (Part VII), and a concluding section (Part VIII).