Pappas v. Board of Adjustment

603 A.2d 65, 254 N.J. Super. 52, 1992 N.J. Super. LEXIS 53
CourtNew Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division
DecidedFebruary 14, 1992
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 603 A.2d 65 (Pappas v. Board of Adjustment) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pappas v. Board of Adjustment, 603 A.2d 65, 254 N.J. Super. 52, 1992 N.J. Super. LEXIS 53 (N.J. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

The opinion of the court was delivered by

O’BRIEN, J.A.D.

Plaintiff appeals from the final judgment of the Law Division dismissing his claim for inverse condemnation. We affirm.

Plaintiff is the owner of Lots 16b and 17b in Block 38, as shown on the Tax Assessment Map of the Borough of Leonia. These two lots comprise a parcel measuring 75 feet square containing 5,625 square feet. The property is vacant land fronting on Orchard Place, which was purchased by plaintiff in 1980 for $15,000. Plaintiff and his wife own adjoining property known and designated as Lots 49 and 50 in Block 38 on the Tax Assessment Map, commonly known as 119 Orchard Place, which they acquired as tenants by the entirety in 1978.

The vacant lot is located in an A-3 residential district, which, by amendment to the zoning ordinance in 1986, requires a depth of 100 feet although retaining a required frontage of 50 feet [54]*54and a minimum square-foot area of 5,000 square feet. Plaintiffs application for a variance of 25 feet from the required depth of 100 feet was denied by the Board of Adjustment.

Plaintiff filed a two-count complaint in lieu of prerogative writs, which sought in the first count to reverse the denial of his application for a variance, and in the second count sought inverse condemnation. In a written opinion dated April 20, 1989, the Law Division reversed the denial of the variance and ordered the building inspector to issue a building permit. On defendants’ appeal, in an opinion dated July 13, 1990, we reversed the Law Division and reinstated the resolution of the Board of Adjustment denying the requested variance. Since the Law Division judge had not addressed the second count of plaintiff’s complaint seeking inverse condemnation, we remanded that issue to the Law Division “for consideration of the question of inverse condemnation about which we express no opinion.”

On December 12, 1990, a different Law Division judge conducted a hearing on our remand. Plaintiff had retained new counsel and all parties had apparently filed briefs in the Law Division. At the hearing, plaintiff’s counsel offered photographs of the property and an earlier subdivision map, which plaintiff had submitted in the belief that he needed a subdivision.1 The court sustained defendant’s objection to the subdivision map saying, “[Bjecause this is — the nature of this, there’s no testimony set down and it’s really nothing additional.” Thereafter argument ensued during the course of which the trial judge inquired, “Why did the Appellate Division remand the inverse condemnation? That’s my question,” to which counsel for respondent Borough of Leonia stated,

Judge, we have talked about that ourself. Why didn’t they put everybody out of their misery here and why make us all come back and argue these points all over again? My only explanation is that because these issues were raised [55]*55below and counsel had an opportunity to present them to the trial Court, and the trial Court simply did not address, that the Appellate Division was not going to exercise original jurisdiction and decide that issue without giving counsel an opportunity to come before the court, show the photographs or whatever pieces of evidence that were submitted and let the Court make its initial finding. That’s my understanding.

Counsel correctly noted that the purpose of the remand was to afford plaintiff the opportunity to present evidence in support of his claim for inverse condemnation, which had not been addressed previously by the trial court. Apparently, plaintiff decided not to submit any further evidence except the photographs and the subdivision map (which was rejected) and simply to rely upon argument. Yet, in his brief on this appeal, plaintiff argues that the trial judge on remand “declined to allow new evidence or to permit a de novo consideration of the record in the context of inverse condemnation, as opposed to agency review.” However, plaintiffs counsel waited until after the trial judge had delivered her opinion to state, “[W]e would like to have the opportunity to supplement the record to indicate what that diminution in value would be,” which he had apparently referred to in his brief.

Unfortunately, counsel and the trial judge referred to language in our opinion as “findings,” binding upon the trial judge on remand upon the basis of which inverse condemnation should be denied. This was an incorrect interpretation of our opinion which addressed solely the question before us of whether the denial of the variance by the Board of Adjustment had been arbitrary, unreasonable or capricious. In reaching our decision we reviewed historical facts about the property which are apparently not disputed. Plaintiff purchased the property on February 17, 1980 for $15,000 from Shersue Development Corp. (Shersue), whose prior application for a variance from a required floating setback had been denied by the Board of Adjustment and such denial was affirmed by the Law Division and by us. Because plaintiff and his wife own the only building fronting on the east side of Orchard Place within 100 feet of the lot in question, their construction of a substantial addition to [56]*56the north side of their building in 1980 apparently changed the required front setback. Based on those historical facts, we noted plaintiff’s argument that, from 1981 until 1986, when the zoning ordinance was amended, the property in question was a fully conforming building lot. Since this was the evidence initially before the Law Division and before us, it was also before the Law Division on remand. However, the remand judge made no findings of fact from that evidence.

An inverse condemnation action is different than an action reviewing an administrative determination by a board of adjustment to deny an application for a variance. An inverse condemnation action is a review of the effect of a zoning regulation on a property owner’s constitutional right not to have his property taken for public use without just compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Article I, paragraph 20, and Article IY, section 6, paragraph 3 of the New Jersey Constitution.

Thus, an inverse condemnation case is a “taking case,” i.e., the property owner alleges that his property has been taken for public use without just compensation in violation of his constitutional rights. “[T]he Constitution measures a taking of property not by what a State says, or by what it intends, but by what it does.” Hughes v. Washington, 389 U.S. 290, 298, 88 S.Ct. 438, 443, 19 L.Ed.2d 530, 536 (1967) (Stewart, J., concurring). In Sheerr v. Evesham Tp., 184 N.J.Super. 11, 51, 445 A.2d 46 (Law Div.1982), the court exhaustively compiled inverse condemnation cases in finding that a taking had occurred in that case. When the court makes such a determination, it is then necessary to address the remedy.2

[57]*57The test for when a regulatory action by government amounts to a taking is reasonably well settled in this state. In Morris County Land v. Parsippany-Troy Hills, 40 N.J. 539, 557, 193 A.2d 232

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Bluebook (online)
603 A.2d 65, 254 N.J. Super. 52, 1992 N.J. Super. LEXIS 53, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pappas-v-board-of-adjustment-njsuperctappdiv-1992.