Bow & Arrow Manor, Inc. v. Town of West Orange

• Decision Date: 05 July 1973
• Citation: 63 N.J. 335,307 A.2d 563
• Parties: BOW AND ARROW MANOR, INC., a corporation, et al., Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. The TOWN OF WEST ORANGE, a Municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant, and Louis P. Falcone, Defendant. WEST ORANGE RIDING CLUB, INC., a corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. The TOWN OF WEST ORANGE, a Municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant, and Louis P. Falcone, Mayor, Defendant. MOTOR CLUB OF AMERICA, a New Jersey corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. The TOWN OF WEST ORANGE, a Municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 335

63 N.J. 335

307 A.2d 563

BOW AND ARROW MANOR, INC., a corporation, et al., Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. The TOWN OF WEST ORANGE, a Municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant, and Louis P. Falcone, Defendant.

WEST ORANGE RIDING CLUB, INC., a corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. The TOWN OF WEST ORANGE, a Municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant, and Louis P. Falcone, Mayor, Defendant.

MOTOR CLUB OF AMERICA, a New Jersey corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. The TOWN OF WEST ORANGE, a Municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued May 22, 1973.

Decided July 5, 1973.

Joseph G. Dooley, Jr., Newark, for defendant-appellant, Town of West Orange (Harry A. Margolis, Newark, attorney; Vincent M. Mangino, Orange, on the brief).

Ronald Reichstein, Montclair, for plaintiffs-respondents, Bow & Arrow Manor, Inc., Harry Knowles, Jr. and Doris Knowles (Beck Reichstein & Guidone, Montclair, attorneys).

Samuel B. Lesser, East Orange, for plaintiff-respondent, Motor Club of America (Meyers & Lesser, East Orange, attorneys).

Seymour Rudenstein, Orange, for plaintiffs-respondents, Barkley F. Eckert and Christine Eckert (Mellinger & Rudenstein, Orange, attorneys).

Herman W. Kapp, Newark, for plaintiffs-respondents, Suburban Essex Riding Club and 12--22 Woodland Avenue Corporation (Kapp & Finkel, Newark, attorneys).

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

CONFORD, P.J.A.D., Temporarily Assigned.

The Appellate Division affirmed, for the reasons given by the trial court, a holding by the Law Division that the 1969 zoning ordinance of West Orange was unconstitutional as arbitrary and unreasonable in its restrictions as to permitted uses of properties owned by the four plaintiff ownership interests, each of which had brought an action in lieu of prerogative writs attacking the validity of the ordinance. We granted certification. 63 N.J. 245, 306 A.2d 448 (1973).

Three of the plaintiff proprietary interests, which for convenience we denominate respectively as the Manor, the Riding Club and the Eckerts, have a common zoning situation somewhat different from that of the fourth plaintiff, Motor Club of America (MCA). The properties of those three are, and since the original 1929 zoning ordinance of the town always have been, zoned for one-family residential use. But each is used in whole or in part, for a long existing nonconforming or variance non-residential use.

The Manor is the site of a very large restaurant on a nine-acre parcel; the Riding Club comprises a substantial plant for recreational horse riding and allied activities; and the Eckerts' property is the site of a small wood and fence business as well as three residences. These properties (except for Riding Club, which is west of Eckerts') are situated on the westerly side of Prospect Avenue, a major north-south county road, more or less close to the T--intersection of Woodland Avenue (an east-west street) with Prospect Avenue. That intersection is about a half-mile north of the major street intersection of Prospect Avenue and Eagle Rock Avenue, three of the four corners of which, together with their immediate proximate areas, are devoted to substantial non-residential uses. The most prominent of these is a large Korvette Shopping Center of about 37 acres on the northwest corner of the said intersection, established about 1962. The Korvette tract includes a bank and a separate automotive supply store.

The MCA property is a 9 1/2 acre tract of vacant land with about 350 feet of frontage on the westerly side of Prospect Avenue and 1,100 feet in depth, immediately north of the Korvette parcel. The Prospect Avenue frontage of MCA, along with a roughly similar tract north of it owned by Kruvant (not a party), is zoned O--R, which is basically restricted, so far as commercial use is concerned, to 2 1/2 story (not over 35 feet high) office building or research laboratory uses. The rear 150 feet of MCA is zoned residential, similar to the general area to the west.

The MCA-Kruvant parcels are bounded on the north by Nicholas Avenue, part of which, for some distance west of Prospect Avenue, is a paper street. The Riding Club and Eckert properties lie between Nicholas Avenue and Woodland Avenue, the former fronting on Woodland. Woodland Avenue is a moderate-traffic, east-west street running from Prospect Avenue to Pleasant Valley Way, a major north-south road about 3/4 mile to the west. Except for the Riding Club all of the territory abutting Woodland Avenue and all near it except Eckerts' and Manor, is developed exclusively for moderate sized, attractice one-family residences. This residential development includes all the area abutting and west of the Manor. An elementary school stands in the center of this residential section. The area west of Kruvant, MCA and Korvette is all zoned residential but as yet is largely undeveloped.

West Orange is predominantly a single-family residential community, characterized by neighborhood shopping areas, some golf courses and public parklands, and a few small two-family residential and industrial sections. The area in dispute in this case is in the north-central part of the town.

The entirety of the lands fronting on the easterly side of Prospect Avenue from Eagle Rock Avenue to well north of all of the properties here involved consists of the South Mountain Reservation maintained as undeveloped parkland by the Essex County Park Commission. North of the Manor property on the west side of Prospect Avenue is the golf course of the Montclair Golf Club. North of that to the nearby Verona city line, and beyond, there is one-family residential development on both sides of Prospect Avenue.

Prospect Avenue at the location of the subject properties is a two-lane, very heavily trafficked thoroughfare, with dangerous bends in the road. The intersection of Prospect and Eagle Rock Avenues becomes clogged during rush hours and over weekends. Essex County has been trying to interest the State in taking over Prospect Avenue and widening it to four lanes. This will become particularly vital with the impending opening of an exit onto Prospect Avenue, a half mile south of Eagle Rock Avenue, from the recently completed Interstate Highway 280.

The topography of all the subject properties is characterized by a more or less gradual but substantial decline in a westerly direction, from the level of Prospect Avenue, reaching a low point of 50--60 feet below Prospect Avenue at the westerly portion of the MCA tract. This condition, coupled with Prospect Avenue traffic density renders difficult the emergence of vehicles from Woodland Avenue and from private driveways onto Prospect Avenue.

I. Background of the 1969 Zoning.

West Orange engaged the planning firm of Robert Catlin and Associates in 1963 to consult with the Planning Board in the preparation of a comprehensive master plan for the town. Russell L. Montney, a professional planner, was in charge of the work for Catlin. This project led to the adoption of a comprehensive master plan by the Board in June 1966. The plan recommended, among many other things, that the Manor, Eckert and Riding Club properties be devoted to 'commercial and non-residential special uses,' but that was contrary to Montney's views as to the latter two properties because of the traffic situation at the intersection of Woodland and Prospect Avenues, and, as to the Manor, because this would constitute spot zoning. ¹

The master plan made a similar use recommendation as to MCA, in which Montney concurred at the time, but he testified that he ultimately agreed that the O--R district was appropriate zoning for the MCA parcel. However, a September 1969 memo from the Planning Board to the Council suggested an OB--2 district for MCA (8-story Office Building, private or public, with accessory retail use). Montney also testified that the residential zoning of the MCA rear was sound in view of the residential zoning immediately to the west.

The town council gave the matter of revision of zoning for the municipality as a whole extended study and consideration from June 1966 until the adoption of the subject ordinance on December 16, 1969, meeting with Montney and other officials and representatives of the public many times toward that end. In December 1968 the Council submitted to the public a tentative land use map. This showed MCA in an O--R district, the main Manor parcel in a B--2 district (permitting retail store operations), and Eckerts and Riding Club in a residential district. Submissions for changes were received from miscellaneous sources, including property owners and the Planning Board. After a year of consideration by the Council (there was much debate and dissension over features of the zone use plan not here involved), the subject ordinance was adopted by the Council over the veto of the Mayor.

II. The Issues.

It is fundamental that zoning is a municipal legislative function, beyond the purview of interference by the court sunless an ordinance is seen in whole or in application to any particular property to be clearly arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable, or plainly contrary to fundamental principles of zoning or the statute. N.J.S.A. 40:55--31, 32. It is commonplace in municipal planning and zoning that there is frequently, and certainly here, a variety of possible zoning plans, districts, boundaries, and use restriction classifications, any of which would represent a defensible exercise of the municipal legislative judgment. It is not the function of the court to rewrite or annul a particular zoning scheme duly adopted by a governing body merely because the court would have done it differently or because the preponderance of the weight of the expert testimony adduced at a trial is at variance with the local legislative judgment. If the latter is at least debatable it is to be sustained. Kozesnik v. Montgomery Twp., 24 N.J. 154, 167, 131 A.2d 1 (1957); Vickers v. Tp. Com....