Opinion ID: 2067367
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: How the State May Define and Assert a Claim Under the Amendment

Text: We are initially concerned with whether the State must satisfy the requirements of N.J.S.A. 13:1B-13.1 to -13.6 in order to specifically define and assert its claim pursuant to law. Plaintiffs argue that pursuant to law refers to statutory law and that the only legislative pronouncement dealing with identification of State claimed riparian property is found in Title 13. Accordingly, the State must comply with Title 13. This contention is flawed for several reasons. First, Title 13 delineated a methodology that was to be used to enable the Council to determine and certify those lands which it finds are State owned lands. N.J.S.A. 13:1B-13.2 (emphasis added). This standard differs from one in which the State proposes to assert a claim. The difference is not simply semantic. Determination and certification that lands are owned by the State call for more stringent requisites than simply asserting a claim. Second, as previously observed, Title 13 does not encompass all riparian lands; and studies of meadowlands properties may involve factors substantially different from those involved in oceanfront properties. Third, it is obvious that claims could be defined and asserted in ways different from that prescribed in Title 13. It is reasonable to assume that the people's intent was not that restrictive. A listing of the statutory requirements makes the point self-evident. Title 13 requires the preparation of a survey and publishing of a map, which must be filed with the Secretary of State and sent to the clerk of each county and municipality where the land is situated. N.J.S.A. 13:1B-13.4. There must be publication of a list of the parcels designated in whole or in part as State-owned lands in a newspaper circulating in the county where the land is located. Ibid. Title 13 has been interpreted to compel the State to set forth on the maps any riparian grants that it may have made. City of Newark v. Natural Resource Coun., supra, 133 N.J. Super. at 261. That is consonant with the legislative (Title 13) imperative that the State certify ownership, a requirement that need not be satisfied under the Amendment. Descriptions of the land, whether in the form of a map or otherwise, notice to the landowners, the amount and nature of evidence necessary to make a claim under the Amendment  all could justifiably differ from Title 13, particularly since the purposes of Title 13 and the Amendment are not identical. Restricting the Council to Title 13 procedures would be an unnecessary impairment of its administrative flexibility. That the Council generally employed the Title 13 procedures in non-meadowlands areas, a program initiated in 1973, long before the Legislature considered the proposed Amendment, does not vitiate the Council's authority to utilize another methodology. [9] We find nothing in the legislative history of the Amendment that supports the conclusion that Title 13 sets forth the exclusive manner in which a claim could be made. This is not to say that the Legislature could not enact a statute prescribing the method to define and assert a claim. We find, however, that even in the absence of such a statute, the Council has authority to designate and describe lands that the State claims it owns. The Legislature has authorized the Council to convey and lease property. E.g., N.J.S.A. 12:3-7, 12:3-10, 12:3-12, 13:1B-13, 13:1B-13.7. Implicit in that authority is the right to survey, map, and determine the boundaries of its lands. Indeed, the Council had started to investigate the status of beachfront properties that might be subject to the State's claims before adoption of the Amendment. Public Hearing before Subcommittee of the Assembly Agriculture and Environment Committee on ACR-3037 and SCR-3023 4 (July 23, 1981) (testimony of Judith A. Yaskin, First Assistant Attorney General). The State must not only delineate the former tideland, but also should alert those having an adverse interest. That warning is necessary to fulfill a major purpose of the Amendment, namely, to relieve property owners from State ownership claims that may or may not be valid. Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether land ever had been flowed by the tide, and unless the State acted affirmatively, owners would be uncertain indefinitely as to whether the State has a claim to the land. Gormley v. Lan, 88 N.J. 26, 35 n. 2 (1981). [10] A claim made in good faith by the State notifying the property owner is all that is required. Much of the controversy centers on a map introduced into evidence as Exhibit P-13. The plaintiffs and our dissenting colleague contend this exhibit conforms with the Amendment's requisite of specifically defining the land. We hold otherwise. P-13 is a map of the State. Charted on the map are a series of 1632 squares, each representing about 1.5 miles square. They aggregate 2445 square miles or approximately 30% of the land mass of New Jersey. Each square corresponds with an aerial photograph, a photomap, in the Office of Environmental Analysis in the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The squares extend along the Atlantic Coastline to Cape May and thence up the Delaware Bay and River to Trenton. P-13 also groups the squares into zones, the land within a zone having similar tidal characteristics. Some of the squares on P-13 are colored. As to the land within those colored squares, the State had made a sufficient investigation and study to enable it to prepare a claim overlay showing the mean high water mark and thereby delineating the lands it claimed within those areas. By the November 2, 1982 deadline, 917 aerial photomaps with such claim overlays had been finalized and filed. These cover 1377.79 square miles. In addition a Claims Overlay Preparation Summary listing all sources investigated for a particular map was prepared. The uncolored squares on P-13, representing lands primarily in the Delaware Tidal region, show areas for which the State had not prepared claim overlays by November 2, 1982, but for which it had only the aerial photographs. Photomaps of those uncolored squares may or may not contain any tideland claims. At best they are indicia that the State is investigating these lands. The photomaps of these uncharted squares had been prepared by the Office of Environmental Analysis in 1977 and 1978, well before the Legislature had proposed submission of the Amendment to the electorate. [11] An index to the maps published by the Council in 1979, entitled Index, Lands Subject to Investigation for Areas Now or Formerly Below Mean High Water (the Index ), showed the areas that had been photographed in squares, each representing about 1 1/2 square miles. These are the same squares portrayed on P-13, except that those in the Index show the municipalities, major roadways, land, ocean and water ways. The Index depicted all lands that were to be subjected to systematic and comprehensive analysis for potential areas now or formerly below mean high water. [12] It is incongruous indeed to suggest that in 1981 the Legislature proposed a constitutional amendment requiring the distribution of photomaps that had been available to the public since June 1979. The Attorney General agrees that the uncharted squares do not constitute a claim satisfying the constitutional mandate. David Moore, chairman of the Tidelands Resource Council, testified at the trial that he could not in good faith assert a claim on behalf of the State to these properties. When asked why, he responded: I think there are a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the Council feels a responsibility not to claim land that it has knowledge that the State has no interest in. We know as a result of the mapping process that's gone on that there are likely to be significant areas of land to which the State has no claim involved in the P-13 exhibit along the Delaware. Mr. Moore also explained the significance of the uncharted squares: Q. All that is is a, that really only shows areas of investigation, doesn't it? A. It is a key sheet. Q. That's all it is? A. Yes. Q. It's an area that was determined to be investigated so that you could subsequently learn if in fact a claim can be made? A. That is so. Q. You wouldn't be asserting a claim by that map, you'd be just contemplating a further investigation so maybe you could assert a claim? A. That is so. We agree with Judge Greenberg's comments in his Appellate Division opinion that it can hardly be conceived that the Legislature in proposing the amendment or the people in adopting it could have intended the State to act in bad faith. Yet it is clear that if P-13 and the photo base maps are filed without specific delineation of the State's claim on a property-by-property basis, the claim will not be made in good faith. It is of no assistance to a property owner to know that the claim against him is contingent only. He wants to know the actual status of his property. [187 N.J. Super. at 242-43] The uncharted areas indicate at most areas suspected of possibly containing some tidelands. It must be kept in mind that we are not concerned with the land that is presently subject to the ebb and flow of the tides or had been within the forty-year period prior to November 1981. The Amendment implicates only those lands once flowed at mean high tide that are no longer so flowed, more of which is in the Atlantic Coastal area than in the Delaware Tidal region. Thirty-seven percent of the photomaps of the Atlantic Coast contained no formerly-flowed tidelands. Furthermore, if the State's experience on its claims in the Atlantic Coastal areas proves true in the Delaware Tidal region, then no more than 15% of the lands subject to investigation in the Delaware Tidal region would be subject to a claim by the State. Deeming the base photomaps alone specifically to define claims would usurp the fundamental right exercised by the people to revise their Constitution. The public in granting the State an additional year to define lands it claimed as tidelands must have intended the State to do more than it had already done. Moreover, as previously observed, the Administration had opposed the Amendment precisely because it believed that the additional work necessary could not be completed within one year. On the other hand, we believe that where the State's mapping reached the point that it designated the place where the tide had flowed, as shown on its claim overlays, the Amendment's specific delineation requirement has been met. We respect this administrative judgment of the Council. See City of Newark v. Natural Resource Coun., supra, 82 N.J. at 539-40. Unquestionably the Council has acted in good faith by making claims for which it has a reasonable basis. The Amendment was addressed to the issue of what constituted tidelands and the uncertainty related to the resolution of that issue. It is true, of course, that the State at various times had granted riparian rights. However, it was not necessary for the State to set forth the grants that it had made. These are known by the grantees and presumably by their successors in interest. We do not find that the State was under a duty to make and impose grant overlays to be superimposed upon the base photomaps to meet the Amendment's standards. We are satisfied that the State has asserted as well as specifically defined its riparian claims. The public has been given notice of the State's claims. The claimed areas are shown on P-13 and the base photomaps with the claim overlays. All have been filed with the Secretary of State and county and municipal clerks. The plaintiffs argue that in adopting the Amendment the people never intended to surrender possible claims by the State and a possible consequential loss of funds from the possible sale or lease of those lands (after successfully establishing ownership), which would have been devoted to the public school Fund. The record belies this contention. The voters were asked to make a choice between two sharply opposing points of view. Opponents claimed the Amendment constituted a giveaway because the mapping could not be completed within one year and the Fund would suffer a monetary loss. Proponents argued that the Amendment would terminate within a reasonable period the uncertainty that record landowners had with respect to whether their property was being claimed by the State. The choice was made by the people. That choice is not to be frustrated, but rather the people's will and wisdom is to be respected by the Court.