Lyons v. City of Camden

• Decision Date: 06 June 1968
• Docket Number: No. A--96,A--96
• Parties: Gregory M. LYONS, et ux., et al. Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF CAMDEN, a municipal corporation, The Housing Authority of the City of Camden, Camden City Planning Board, both body corporate, politic and a municipal agency, Defendants- Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 89

52 N.J. 89

243 A.2d 817

Gregory M. LYONS, et ux., et al. Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF CAMDEN, a municipal corporation, The Housing Authority of the City of Camden, Camden City Planning Board, both body corporate politic and a municipal agency Defendants- Respondents.

No. A--96.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued Feb. 6, 1968.

Decided June 6, 1968.

Carlton W. Rowand, Camden, for appellants.

William N. Rosenblatt, Camden, for respondents (Joseph M. Nardi, Jr., Camden, attorney for City of Camden, Martin F. McKernan, Camden, attorney for The Housing Authority of City of Camden, Dominic G. Bocco, Camden, attorney for Camden City Planning Bd.).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

FRANCIS, J.

After investigation and public hearing, the Planning Board of the City of Camden on December 30, 1965 declared blighted a section of the City known as the Northshore area. N.J.S.A. 40:55--21.1 et seq.; N.J.S.A. 55:14A--31 et seq. On February 10, 1966 the City Council, after reviewing the matter, approved the Board's finding and adopted a resolution setting forth its determination that the entire area was blighted. Plaintiffs are a substantial number of home owners who live in one section of the Northshore area. They attack the validity of the blight declaration as far as it includes their section within its scope. When the matter was first before the trial court the action of the local agencies was sustained. We certified the subsequent appeal to the Appellate Division, and after argument in this Court remanded the matter to the trial court for further consideration. 48 N.J. 524, 226 A.2d 625 (1967). That was done because our examination of the record indicated that the plaintiffs had not been accorded an adequate opportunity to cross-examine the municipal witnesses and to introduce proof of their own to negative the finding of blight as it related to their locale. Thereafter, a full hearing was conducted in the Law Division. At the conclusion thereof, the trial judge reaffirmed the blight determination and filed an exhaustive opinion setting forth his supporting reasons. On plaintiffs' application we certified the matter directly from the trial court.

As we have indicated, the part of the City involved is called the Northshore area. It consists of 272.45 acres and based upon the proof has 'sound' boundaries in accordance with recognized municipal planning criteria. It is bounded on the west by the New Jersey Channel of the Delaware River; on the north by 36th Street, the boundary line between Camden and Pennsauken; on the east by a proposed 155-foot wide right-of-way, a reconstruction of Harrison Street running from State Street to 36th Street; on the south by State Street and Cooper River. Much of the soil in the area contains river mud and marsh which present foundation design difficulties. A sewage treatment and disposal plant is located north of 27th Street. It was estimated that there are approximately 100 abandoned barges along the shoreline of the area declared blighted.

Most of the area, 210.67 acres of the 272.45 acres involved or 77.3%, consists of undeveloped land; 23.66 acres are streets and rights-of-way, many of the streets being paper streets. Seventy-four per cent of the vacant land is owned by the City of Camden; 47 acres of this are under water between the shoreline and the United States Pierhead and Bulkhead line; 85 acres are used for a city dump. Developed land is generally concentrated in two locations. One is between 27th and 30th Streets; the other extends from Beideman Avenue to 36th Street. Residential land occupies 11.61 acres, commercial, 11.07 acres, industrial, 8.28 acres, and land in public use, 7.16 acres. There are 198 structures in the entire area, of which 168 are dwellings. Eighty-nine or 53% Of the dwellings were described as substandard by the Planning Board's experts; 33 others were said to have significant deficiencies. Approximately 4.3% Of the total area is devoted to residential use. About 6.76 acres or 58% Of the 11.61 residential-use acres are occupied by the substandard houses. Fourteen of the residential structures are unoccupied and in such state of disrepair as to be untenantable. Twenty-three residential structures are not connected to the City sanitation system. Many of the residences are 40 years old or more. Many of the residence lots are very small, with little or no front or side yards. The entire area was said to be subject to fires, 255 fire calls having been made from 1961 through 1965. The streets servicing the residential area were described as inadequate, particularly the one collector street.

Of the 30 non-residential buildings, 14 were intended for industrial and manufacturing use; three of these 14 are vacant and dilapidated and considered untenantable. Six of the remaining 16 contain critical deficiencies and are classed as substandard.

The plan envisioned for the entire 272.45 acre tract was development of an integrated community within Camden's Northshore. It would include housing, a community center, a school or schools, churches and recreational areas. There was expert testimony showing that use of the entire acreage was necessary to bring the plans to fruition.

As has been indicated above, the residential portion of the area declared blighted is almost entirely between 27th and 36th Streets. Its north-south boundaries are between the northerly side of 27th Street and the northerly side of 36th Street (the northerly boundary of the entire tract found blighted); the east-west boundaries are between Harrison Avenue (the 155 foot right-of-way) and the Delaware River channel. All of the plaintiffs' homes are within this ares. For purposes of presenting their claim, plaintiffs have divided the blighted territory into two parts. The portion just described, where their homes are located, is referred to as the 'smaller area'; the remainder of the Northshore area is called the 'large area.' The dividing line between the two is 27th Street.

Plaintiffs make no attack of any consequence on the declaration of blight so far as it relates to the larger area, south of 27th Street. They claim, however, that the smaller area containing their homes is not blighted and can be conveniently excluded from the total acreage by using 27th Street as a natural boundary. Therefore, they contend the determination of blight, to the extent that it includes the smaller area, is arbitrary, unreasonable and not supported by substantial evidence as required by the statute. N.J.S.A 40:55--21.6. After thorough consideration of the matter on remand the trial court rejected the contention.

Defendants' expert testimony was to the effect that the gross Northshore area of 272.45 acres is blighted within the meaning of our statute, N.J.S.A. 40:55--21.1. The area has natural boundaries, as set forth above, and if a successful urban renewal program is to be undertaken sound principles of planning require use of all of the land within those boundaries. Moreover, the municipality's principal expert witness asserted that the condition of the smaller area was such that, even if it stood alone, it would be deemed blighted.

The smaller area encompasses 129 acres, of which 11.61 acres or 9% Are devoted to residential use. (This constitutes 4.3% Of the gross Northshore area.) Sixth-nine and one-half (69 1/2) acres or 54% Are vacant land, about 50% Of which is owned by the City; 13 acres or 10% Consist of paper or paved streets. The 11.61-acre residential portion has paved streets which provide access to the rest of the City. Except for that section there are no paved roads within the undeveloped area. Twenty and six-tenths (20.6) acres or 16% Are under water between the shoreline and the bulkhead line. About 50 sunken bargen dot the waterline of this smaller area. It may be noted also that Adams Avenue between 28th and 30th Streets has no sewer facilities. The remaining acreage is devoted to public (such as a sewage disposal plant), commercial and industrial purposes.

In the ten-year period 1955 to 1965 a total of 59 permits were issued for residential improvements. Only one was for a new home, having a reported cost of $10,000. The remaining 58 permits, for a total of $31,000, were issued for repairs and alterations of residences. In the same period permits for work totalling $38,000 on non-residential structures were issued. One of the property owners who had lived in the neighborhood for 54 years testified that his home was over 50 years old, and that there had been no improvements and no construction of any kind in the smaller area for the last 20 years. Another owner conceded that 40% Of the homes in this area are from 40 to 50 years old; a third said 40% Were from 25 to 40 years of age.

There are 164 dwellings in the smaller area. Defendants' experts found 85 of them to be substandard, i.e. containing a combination of critical and intermediate deficiencies or numerous and varied intermediate deficiencies. In the gross Northshore area, of the 168 residential structures, 144 one-family, 8 two-family and two one-family plus commercial use are occupied; 14 of them are vacant and not suitable for occupancy.

An experienced firm of planning and urban renewal consultants made a thorough study of the area for defendants. A structure-by-structure survey was made by four of the firm's assistants, three of whom were engineers and the fourth a registered architect. Their conclusions were reached after exterior and interior investigations of the dwellings. If exterior examination disclosed a substandard condition,...