What is spot zoning? That was one of the questions before the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey in Hal Holding, LLC v. Mount Laurel Township, Superior Court of N.J., Appellate Division, A-1340-10T2 (May 4, 2012.)
In that case, the parties were disputing whether an ordinance passed by Mount Laurel Township requiring a parcel of land to be maintained as a golf course was an invalid exercise of the Township’s authority.  One of the issues in the case was whether that ordinance constituted “inverse spot zoning.”  That is a principle of law which states that when a land use decision “arbitrarily singles out a particular parcel for different, less favorable treatment” than the less favorable ones it will be examined to see if the decision was arbitrary in nature.  Riya Finnegan, LLC. V. Twp. Council of S. Brunswick, 197 N.J. 184, 197 (2008) quoting Pen Cent. Transport Co. v. N.Y. City, 438 U.S. 104 (1978).

 

In Hal Holding, the Court found that there had been no inverse spot zoning. Although the ordinance “was intended to affect, only one property: the subject property [the golf course], [in order to find that there was inverse spot zoning] the zoning must also constitute arbitrary treatment. Here, given that a purpose of the ordinance ‘was to promote the continuation of open space and natural features adjacent to fully developed residential areas,’ and the subject property consisted of open space (a golf course) adjacent to fully developed residential areas the disparate treatment here is not arbitrary.” Id. at 11.
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