Court Opinion

ID: 9705701
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:17:12.618777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:13.954455
License: Public Domain

Heher, J.
(concurring). I join in the opinion of the Chief Justice.
Traffic density and congestion are related to land use, and therein lies the means of alleviating the attendant evil consequences to the local economy. A remedy for interference with the free flow of traffic without undue hazard is to be found in the relationship between the arteries of traffic and the abutting lands and the regulation of land use to mitigate the ill effects of traffic overcrowding by a judicious distribution of the burden. There is a close association between the use of land and buildings, and their height and bulk as well, and the abutting streets and highways, their width and relation to one another. Land uses vary in traffic-generating potential; the solution of traffic difficulties does not alone depend on the capacity of streets and highways; and the local authority has a broad discretion, according to zoning principle, to take all measures reasonably deemed essential to the moral and material life of the people and the wholesome development of the community as a political, social, and economic unit.
Such is positive zoning policy: the regulation of the “height, number of stories, and sizes of buildings, and other structures,” and the “density of population”; the lessening of “congestion in the streets”; securing “safety from fire, panic and other dangers”; preventing “the overcrowding of land or buildings”; and the avoidance of “undue concentration of population”—these considerations among others. B. S. 40:55-30 and 40 :55—31, as amended by L. 1948, c. 305; 40:55-33.
Viewing the action taken here in the context of the circumstances and the other considerations basic to zoning, there was no abuse of the constitutional and statutory power.
*330For reversal—Chief Justice Weintraub, and Justices Heher, Waci-ieneeld, Burling, Jacobs, Francis and Proctor—7.
For affirmance—Hone.