Opinion ID: 2339947
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Interpretation of Certain Provisions of the Act

Text: There are certain provisions of the Act that should be clarified and interpreted for the benefit of both the Council and those parties whose interests may be affected by the Act. Many of the matters mentioned in this section are not strictly before us for determination. Nevertheless, arguments have been addressed to them as being relevant to the legal effect and constitutionality of this new legislation.
The basic power of the Council is to grant or withhold substantive certification; the Council also has the further power to impose conditions on its grant and the implied power to accelerate its denial. We believe that the Council may use its power to grant or deny substantive certification in a multitude of ways in order to accomplish its mission of bringing about statewide compliance with the Mount Laurel obligation. That power is considerable, since denial of substantive certification may result in Mount Laurel litigation brought by a builder, a consequence that the Act was designed to avoid and that most municipalities want to avoid. The Council has the implicit power to condition substantive certification on the inclusion of ordinance provisions for mandatory set asides or density bonuses. § 11a(1). The power of a municipality to include such provisions in its housing element, indeed the requirement that it must consider them is explicit, id.; the sense and structure of the Act necessarily implies the power of the Council, in an appropriate case, to condition substantive certification on such inclusion. Accelerated denial of substantive certification would presumably be reserved for a specific kind of case, one where the circumstances strongly persuaded the Council that its role in achieving compliance with Mount Laurel called for such unusual action on its part. The Council may have the power, once its jurisdiction is invoked, to require the municipality to pursue substantive certification expeditiously and to conform its ordinances to the determination implicit in the Council's action on substantive certification. [19] While the language of the statute could support a contrary conclusion, that conclusion would allow a municipality to use all of the energies of the Council, presumably for the purpose of determining its Mount Laurel obligation through the Council rather than the courts, all the way up to the point at which substantive certification is about to be determined, and then to withdraw from the matter. While we do not pass on this question for all cases, it seems clear to us that all of the cases before us today fall into a special class: practically all of them have been in litigation for a considerable period of time; the cost of this litigation has been considerable, the proceedings often complex, and in many cases the ultimate disposition is not too far off; furthermore, the prospect of producing lower income housing is likely. Under those circumstances, the use by any of these municipalities before us today of the procedures of the Council without thereafter complying with the Council's determination would constitute a gross perversion of the purposes of the Act, as well as an imposition on both the courts and the Council. It would be beyond the understanding of any citizen if our system of government allowed a municipality, about to conform to the requirements of our Constitution after years of litigation for that purpose, to have its case transferred to an administrative agency, allegedly for the purpose of meeting that same constitutional obligation in a different, yet permissible way, and thereafter, at the last moment, several years later, simply to walk away and say, in effect, I choose not to comply with either the courts or the administrative agency set up by the Legislature. We believe the Legislature never intended such a result and presume the Council will not permit it.
While the Act requires the Council to give appropriate weight to ... decisions of other branches of government, § 7, in carrying out its duties, including its determination of housing regions, present and prospective lower income need, its promulgation of criteria and guidelines for determining municipal fair share, and its provision of population and household projections, there is no similar express requirement in connection with any particular municipal proceeding before the Council. The Act does not deal expressly with the question of what force and effect, if any, are to be given to prior determinations in a particular Mount Laurel litigation after its transfer to the Council. Where no final judgment has been entered, we believe the Council is not bound by any orders entered in the matter, all of them being provisional and subject to change, nor is it bound by any stipulations, including a municipality's stipulation that its zoning ordinances do not comply with the Mount Laurel obligation. The administrative remedies, and the administrative approach to that subject, may be significantly different from the court's. Fair share rulings by the court, provisional builder's remedies, site suitability determinations  all of these may not be in accord with the policies and regulations of the Council. Similarly, stipulations in Mount Laurel matters were undoubtedly based on the assumption that the issues would be determined by the court in accordance with Mount Laurel II. They presumably represented the litigant's belief that what was being stipulated would be adjudicated in any event. It is not only, in a sense, unfair to the litigant to be bound by these interim adjudications and stipulations, it would also be inconsistent with the purposes of the Act, for these determinations and stipulations may be inconsistent with the comprehensive plan of development of the state and the method of effectuating it. In this regard, we note that general principles of law have long held that res judicata is applicable only when a final judgment is rendered, and the doctrine of collateral estoppel applies whenever an action is sufficiently firm to be accorded conclusive effect. Restatement (Second) of Judgments, § 13 at 132. But this Court has also stated that collateral estoppel is not mandated by constitution or statute and is a doctrine designed to accomplish various goals, a rule not to be applied if there are sufficient countervailing interests. Matter of Coruzzi, 95 N.J. 557, 568 (1984). On this difficult issue, and faced with this unprecedented Act, we conclude that there are sufficient countervailing interests  in the form of the Council's need for flexibility, and the State's need for uniformity  to free the administrative agency of the requirements of collateral estoppel. At the same time, we underscore that the agencies now involved in this field are free to use the records developed in litigation, including any interim orders or stipulations entered, for such purposes as they deem appropriate. We note that the Rules of Evidence, per se, will not apply in administrative proceedings under the Act. See N.J.S.A. 52:14B-10. Thus, again, technical legal rules will neither compel nor preclude the Council or the Administrative Law Judges hearing cases under section 15 from considering the records already developed in court proceedings.
As we now view the matter, the moratorium on builder's remedies, § 28, is of limited importance. Since it applies only to litigation, it does not apply to matters that are before the Council. And while it applies to all pending litigation (except litigation commenced before January 20, 1983, the date of Mount Laurel II ), all of that litigation may be transferred to the Council. Assuming that there is nevertheless some litigation subject to the moratorium that is not transferred to the Council, the moratorium applies and its effect is to prevent not only the direct grant of a builder's remedy to a particular plaintiff, but an indirect grant that achieves the same result, whether intended or not. For example, as to that case and for the limited period (up to January 1, 1987), a court may not require the inclusion of a mandatory set aside zone within an ordinance if the effect is substantially the same as the grant of a builder's remedy, even though the beneficiary of that zone may not be a party to the litigation. Given this very minimal effect, we will not further dwell on section 28.
Section 8 gives the Council express power to adopt procedural rules in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. Section 6a gives the Council power to establish, and from time to time alter, such plan of organization as it may deem expedient. And section 7c, discussed above, gives the Council power to adopt criteria and guidelines. Implicit in these provisions  indeed, implicit throughout the entire Act, whose purpose is in part to create an agency capable of overseeing the continuing resolution of a monumental social task  is the power, in the Council, to promulgate whatever rules and regulations may be necessary to achieve its statutory task. See, e.g., A.A. Mastrangelo, Inc. v. Environmental Protection Dept., 90 N.J. 666, 683-84 (1982) (absence of an express statutory authorization will not preclude administrative agency action where, by reasonable implication, that action can be said to promote or advance the policies and findings that served as the driving force for the enactment of the legislation).