Cobble Close Farm v. Board of Adjustment of Middletown Tp.

• Decision Date: 03 November 1952
• Docket Number: No. A--19,A--19
• Citation: 92 A.2d 4,10 N.J. 442
• Parties: COBBLE CLOSE FARM v. BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT OF MIDDLETOWN TP. et al.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 442

10 N.J. 442

92 A.2d 4

COBBLE CLOSE FARM v. BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT OF MIDDLETOWN TP. et al.

No. A--19.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Sept. 30, 1952.

Decided Nov. 3, 1952.

John Warren, Jersey City, for appellant.

Leon Reussille, Jr., Red Bank, for respondents (Applegate, Foster, Reussille & Cornwell, Red Bank, attorneys).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, Jr., J.

This is a zoning case. We certified of our own motion the appeal of plaintiff to the Appellate Division from the judgment entered in the Law Division against the plaintiff corporation and in favor of the defendants, Board of Adjustment of the Township of Middletown and David Simpson, Building Inspector of said Township.

Herbert N. Straus and Therese Kuhn Straus, his wife, for many years maintained a country estate of 70 acres in Middletown Township with acreage on both sides of Cooper Road, the mansion house being on the larger part north of the road. On the 23-acre parcel south of the road Mr. and Mrs. Straus built a group of accessory buildings--a dairy, cow barns, stables, machinery shops, manure barn, a large garage, living quarters for bachelor workmen of the estate, and a cottage containing the workmen's dining room and commodious living quarters for other persons in their employ. All of the buildings except the manure barn, the garage and the cottage are grouped in the form of a square around a cobbled court. The garage is close by the group. The cottage stands apart from the group across an artificial pond and is connected to the group by an arched stone colonnade running along the pond. The manure barn is a distance removed from the group. The buildings are of expensive construction, 'elaborate,' with cast stone walls, tile roofs and floors, mullioned windows, oak panelling, 'an architectural showplace,' 'a thing of beauty.' The evidence discloses that the replacement cost of the buildings would approximate $417,000 and that their present sound value after allowance for depreciation is about $292,000.

After Mr. Straus' death the mansion house and the acreage on the north side of Cooper Road were sold. Later, on December 6, 1949, plaintiff's president and his wife acquired at public auction the 23-acre parcel with the accessory buildings for the sum of $28,000, taking title on March 6, 1950 in the name of plaintiff corporation which they organized as their nominee for the purpose. The president and his wife took up residence in the cottage. Plaintiff corporation has invested an additional $20,000 in improvements, but whether to the cottage alone or to the buildings generally does not appear.

The instant controversy grows out of plaintiff's desire to convert the manure barn into a one-family dwelling and the group of buildings around the cobbled court into eight one-family residences. The trial court found that the plans for the eight residences would result in 'multiple family units having a common roof, common walls and a common heating plant.' The plan is not for residences on separate lots. No subdivision of the 23-acre parcel was made. The plan proposes that a dairy building and a portion of a cow barn connected with it would make up one residence; the remaining portion of that cow barn, all of another cow barn and a two-story feed barn would make the second; the horse barn and a portion of the machinery barn would provide the third; another portion of the machinery barn would supply the fourth, and still another portion of the same machinery barn would provide the fifth; and that the building formerly used as quarters for bachelor employees, which is under one roof, would make up into three residences. The township zoning ordinance expressly forbids multi-family units, and it is plain that a consummation of plaintiff's plan would violate that regulation.

The defendant building inspector denied plaintiff a building permit for the proposed alterations because the structures as so altered would not comply with the requirements of the zoning ordinance. Plaintiff appealed to the board of adjustment and also applied to that board for a variance from the provisions of the ordinance. The board sustained the action of the building inspector and denied the variance. The judgment entered in the Law Division sustained the board of adjustment as to both determinations.

The conveyance to plaintiff was made expressly subject to the township's zoning ordinance. The ordinance was originally adopted in 1935 and was substantially amended and revised in 1949, about two months before the auction sale.

Middletown is a sprawling community of great area and is predominantly residential. All but a small portion of the township is zoned for residential purposes. There are five residence districts, A to E, inclusive. The provisions applicable to structures in Zone A, wherein plaintiff's property is located, are designed to make that zone 'the highest type zone in the township,' and it is primarily a district of substantial homes on sizable plots. The zone is in the southeast section of the township, running along the Navesink River for some two and one half miles and extending back from the river up to a mile in some places. Cooper Road runs east and west, paralleling the river, and bisects the westerly half of Zone A.

The zoning ordinance provides that no building in the zone may be 'erected, altered or used' (1) on a plot of land containing an area less than one acre; (2) and having a frontage of less than 150 feet 'on the road or street'; (3) all buildings must be set back at least 75 feet from the 'curb line' and if no 'curb line' from the 'street line', and not less than 15 feet from any rear 'lot' line and not less than 15 feet from any side 'lot' line; (4) the ground floor of the building may not contain less than 1,500 square feet; (5) other than barns, stables, garages and greenhouses accessory to the residence on a 'lot' no structure may be used for any purpose 'other than for a one family dwelling for strictly residential purposes'; (6) not more than one dwelling shall be constructed on one 'lot' except that living quarters may be provided in accessory structures for persons 'employed in domestic service upon the premises.'

The residents of Zone A take a live interest in the maintenance of the zoning standards and the preservation of the character of the district. There are two community organizations, Blossom Cove Road Association and Riverside Drive Protective Association, which took an active part in the proceedings below in opposition to the relief sought by plaintiff from the board of adjustment.

Plaintiff argues first that the ordinance has no application to its property. The contention is that the interconnected structures surrounding the cobbled court are buildings 'fronting on a private court 500 feet from the public road' and that the manure barn is a structure on 'plaintiff's right of way,' and that 'neither they nor the proposed dwellings are erected on 'lots' and do not front upon any 'street' or 'road' and there is no 'curb line', 'street line' or 'lot line' from which setbacks may be measured,' and therefore that the buildings are not within the prohibition of the ordinance against the erection, alteration or use of buildings on a 'plot of land containing an area less than one acre and having a frontage of less than 150 feet on the road or street.' We find no merit in this argument. The 'lot' of land within the meaning given that word by the ordinance is plaintiff's parcel of 23 acres. The ordinance expressly defines a 'lot' as 'a parcel of land, the location, dimensions and boundaries of which are determined by the latest official record * * *.' The frontage, setback and side line requirements are thus to be measured from the boundaries of the 23-acre parcel.

And because the 23-acre parcel is a 'lot' under the ordinance, the prohibition against more than one dwelling on a 'lot' except for accessory living quarters for persons in domestic service on the premises precludes plaintiff's alteration of any of the structures for the residential uses proposed while the cottage is maintained as a residence and the parcel remains undivided. It is urged that the cottage is not a 'main residence' within the meaning of the ordinance because it was not such but in accessory use to the Straus mansion when the 23-acre parcel was part of the larger estate. This argument is plainly specious. Upon the separation of plaintiff's parcel from the larger tract, and the use of the cottage as a residence, the cottage became the 'main building on the same lot' in contemplation of the ordinance and the other buildings 'subordinate and accessory to the main building on the same lot.'

Plaintiff next argues that if the ordinance is applicable to its buildings, to require it to comply therewith results in an arbitrary and capricious interference with its right of enjoyment and use of the property, compelling an adjudication either that the ordinance is invalid as applied to plaintiff's property or that the local board of adjustment should have granted plaintiff a variance from the terms of the ordinance upon grounds of undue hardship pursuant to R.S. 40:55--39(c), N.J.S.A., as amended. In view of this court's decision in Lionshead Lake, Inc., v. Township of Wayne, 10 N.J. 165, 89 A.2d 693 (1952), plaintiff abandoned at the oral argument the contention...