On this date in 1992, the Supreme Court decided Sica v. Wall Township Board of Adjustment, 127 N.J. 152 (1992). [Disclosure: I argued this case for the successful plaintiff]. Justice Pollock’s opinion for a unanimous Court addressed a question that arose out of Medici v. BPR Co., 107 N.J. 1 (1987). There, the Court held that a use variance applicant must satisfy an enhanced standard of proof that the variance is not inconsistent with the intent of the master plan and zoning ordinances (“the negative criteria”). The question in Sica was whether that enhanced standard applied to inherently beneficial uses. The Court said that it did not.
Dr. Sica sought a use variance for a head trauma rehabilitation center. He had received a Certificate of Need for that facility from the New Jersey Department of Health, the first such certificate issue. His proposed facility consisted of forty beds, with 10% reserved for low-income or indigent patients.
The Board of Adjustment denied the variance. Dr. Sica appealed, and the Law Division reversed and remanded to the Board for consideration of reasonable restrictions on the use. The Board, in turn, appealed, and the Appellate Division reversed the Law Division, holding that the Medici enhanced standard applied to inherently beneficial uses such as the proposed head trauma rehabilitation center. Dr. Sica successfully petitioned for Supreme Court review, and the Court reversed and reinstated the Law Division’s ruling, holding that the enhanced standard did not apply to inherently beneficial uses.
The first issue was whether the use was inherently beneficial. Justice Pollock noted that “[a]lthough inherently beneficial uses are generally non-commercial, various profit-making ventures have been deemed to be inherently beneficial.” He cited, among other examples, for-profit senior citizen congregate care facilities, a 120-bed nursing home, and a private day-care nursery.
Dr. Sica’s facility was inherently beneficial, the Court said. “The certificate of need granted by the New Jersey Department of Health attests to the need for the center as do the letters of support from local hospitals and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Significantly, ten per cent of the beds in the center are reserved for indigent patients. So benevolent a facility, even when operated for a profit, easily qualifies as one that is ‘inherently beneficial.’”
Justice Pollock then said that the Medici enhanced standard was not intended to apply to inherently beneficial uses. Though that opinion stated that that standard “will apply in all use-variance cases,” that language was cabined by statements earlier in Medici that when a variance “is not one that inherently serves the public good, the applicant must prove and the board must specifically find that the use promotes the general welfare because the proposed site is particularly suitable for the proposed use.”
Turning to the question “to what extent a use variance involving an inherently beneficial use must satisfy the negative criteria,” the Court established a balancing test. Justice Pollock suggested that boards first “identify the public interest at stake” and then balance that interest against any detrimental effect of the variance, factoring in the ability to impose reasonable conditions on the use. Ultimately, boards should “weigh the positive and negative criteria and determine whether, on balance, the grant of the variance would cause a substantial detriment to the public good.”
In Dr. Sica’s case, the public interest readily outweighed any detriment from the proposed use. The Court reinstated the Law Division’s decision, holding that “Dr. Sica is entitled to the grant of the variance, subject to the imposition of reasonable conditions necessary to ameliorate the adverse impact of the negative criteria.”
The Sica decision has stood the test of time. It has been cited in over 200 subsequent opinions, according to a Lexis search, including in a decision issued just last month. It is a landmark in land use jurisprudence.