Township of Monroe v. Gasko

21 N.J. Tax 391
CourtNew Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division
DecidedApril 20, 2004
StatusPublished

This text of 21 N.J. Tax 391 (Township of Monroe v. Gasko) 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
Township of Monroe v. Gasko, 21 N.J. Tax 391 (N.J. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

This appeal arises from a tax appeal filed with the Middlesex County Tax Board from the 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 tax assessments applied to certain structures located on a farm in Monroe Township owned by William and Marie Gasko, hereinafter referred to as the Gasko Farm. The tax assessor’s assessment of the value of the structures was not based upon a farmland assessed valuation. The Tax Board determined that the structures qualified for farmland assessment valuation pursuant to N.J.S.A. 54:4-23.12(a). On the Township’s appeal to the Tax Court, the Tax Court held that the structures did not qualify for such valuation. We affirm.

The seventy-one acre Gasko Farm at one time was operated as a truck farm, growing fruits and vegetables. In the 1990’s, the farm turned entirely to the production of sale of nursery produce. To implement that change in direction, seven structures were erected on the property, all characterized as “greenhouses.” They are all involved in the growth and production of nursery stock, primarily seasonal flowers and plants. The first-stage propagation is performed in a structure not at issue here. Later stages of growth occur in five other structures. It is these structures which are the subject of this appeal. They have been designated during this appeal as: (1) greenhouse 1, a 144-foot by 294-foot structure, (2) greenhouse 3, a 105-foot by 206-foot structure, (3) greenhouse 4, a 84-foot by 206-foot structure, (4) greenhouse 5, a 90-foot by 206-foot structure, and, (5) greenhouse 6, a 180-foot by 305-foot structure.

[394]*394All of these greenhouses are used in the growth and production of the nursery stock. They also are an integral part of the farm’s retail sales and marketing. The Tax Court Judge described the structures and his rationale thusly:

I have concluded that growing and marketing takes place in all of the buildings. By marketing, I mean the customers view and select product in those buildings.
However, the intensity of those activities varies between Building Number 1 on the one hand, and Buildings 3, 4, 5 and 6 on the other. Just to highlight the differences, in Building Number 1, there are cash registers, there are not in the other buildings. In Building Number 1, there are price signs, and there are not in the other buildings. Although figures are not precise, my conclusion that based on the testimony is that perhaps three-quarters of sales picked up and carried to the cash registers are picked up in Building Number 1, and less than one-quarter in the other building. This is accomplished — in the other buildings. — by fact that the stock in Building Number 1 is constantly being replenished.
The public is invited into both buildings. Mr. Peter Gasko testified that the principal reasons for inviting customers into Buildings 3 and 6 was that it whet their appetite. It got them to come to Gasko’s because of the beautiful display.
Mr. Alias and Ms. Williams (phonetics) from the Assessor’s Office in Monroe testified that there was no distinction in the activity in the two buildings.
Messrs. Wengrin (phonetic), from the New Jersey Farm Bureau, and Brock, from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, testified as to the substantial differences in the activities in Buildings 1, on the one hand, and 3, 4, 5 and 6 on the other, and led them to conclude that either a part or all of Building Number 1 was devoted to selling and not qualified for the exemption of N.J.S.A. 54:4-23.12(a).
I have looked at photos in evidence of the greenhouses. And although the photographs depicted them when few or no customers were present, there is a definite difference in the appearance of Building Number 1 and Buildings 3 through 6.
Gasko’s is an integrated, propagator grower and retailer. And the question, in part, is are these — are there lines to be drawn in the physical operation which separates the place where the selling activities and growing activities take place. All parts of the farm, to some extent, are used in all activities.
I’ve concluded that Building 1 is selling space in which selling activity takes place____[Customers are invited in and freely circulate. Prices are posted. This is a retail, not a wholesale, activity. Cash and credit transactions take place.
Despite the fact that the facility is open to the public less than half of the year, despite the fact that plants are grown in the facility which are not sold from the facility, for example, the pansies, which are growing now and ultimately will be sold from the outside, Gasko’s is a retail operation and substantial amount of resale sales. But the [v]ast majority of retail sales, which take place out of the building, take place out of Building Number 1. They are picked in one and paid for in Building 1.
To isolate that portion of the building where the cash registers are located • approximately 500 square feet and say that that is the only sale space borders on the absurd.
[395]*395Display is an important part of sale space. Customers don’t stand at the cash registers and order plants to be brought to them. Statutes are to be read sensibly.
Making a determination with respect to Buildings Number 3 through Number 6 is not as easy. Although they are different in appearance and intensity of use from Building Number 1, although prices are not posted, customers are invited into these buildings to do more than browse. They are welcome to select and take plants, to ask Gasko family members to give them hanging plants which may not be as easily reached because of the height at which they’re hung and the fact that they’re hung on these elaborate conveyors, unlike the hanging baskets in Building Number 1. And a significant, though not the majority of sales, are selected and taken to the cash registers from buildings other than Building 1.

Farmland assessment, generally, is a favored tax treatment for land used for farmland operations. Indeed, the constitutional authorization for such reduced tax valuation focuses upon the use of the land, not the structures thereon. N.J. Const. Art. VIII, § 1. Application of that favored treatment, therefore, is the exception. Such exceptions are strictly construed. E.g., Princeton Univ. Press v. Bor. of Princeton, 35 N.J. 209, 214, 172 A.2d 420, 422-23 (1961). It is in this context that application of N.J.S.A. 54:4-23.12(a) to the Gasko Farm greenhouses must be considered.

N.J.S.A. 54:4-23.12(a) provides in relevant part:

All structures, which are located on land in agricultural or horticultural use and the farmhouse and the land on which the farmhouse is located, together with the additional land used in connection therewith, shall be valued, assessed and taxed by the same standards, methods and procedures as other taxable structures and other land in the taxing district, regardless of the fact that the land is being valued, assessed and taxed pursuant to P.L.1964, c. 48 (C.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Saunders v. Department of Revenue
711 P.2d 961 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1985)
Hawkins v. Van Zandt County Appraisal District
834 S.W.2d 619 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1992)
General Trading Co. v. Taxation Div. Director
416 A.2d 37 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1980)
Tuinier v. Bedford Charter Township
599 N.W.2d 116 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1999)
Princeton University Press v. Borough of Princeton
172 A.2d 420 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1961)
Maines v. Board of Assessors of Town of Lafayette
125 A.D.2d 951 (Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, 1986)
Green Circle Growers, Inc. v. Lorain County Board of Revision
517 N.E.2d 899 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1988)
Van Wingerden v. Lafayette Township
763 A.2d 294 (New Jersey Superior Court App Division, 2000)
Van Wingerden v. Lafayette Township
18 N.J. Tax 81 (New Jersey Tax Court, 1999)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
21 N.J. Tax 391, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/township-of-monroe-v-gasko-njsuperctappdiv-2004.