Ltr Diane Chandler Zimmerman enc documents 91224

& e CARPENTER, BENNETT & MORRISSEY Mr. Aaron Frank House of the Holy Comforter May 4, 1995 Page 2. Although the Zoning Ordinance does not define nursing home or residential health care facility, the New Jersey Department of Health, pursuant to the Health Care Facilities Planning Act (1971), N.J.S.A. 26:2H-1, et seg., defines, regulates and licenses both. A residential health care facility, like HHC, provides shelter, service and 24-hour supervisory care for its residents, N.J.A.C. 8:43-1.2. A nursing home is a residential health care facility which provides medical supervision and 24- hour continuous skilled nursing care to its residents, N.J.A.C. 8:33H-1.2. Inc. v. Franklin Lakes, 179 N.J. Super. 203, 216 (App. Div.), certif.denied, 87 N.J. 428 (1981), the Court, when faced with a zoning ordinance which conditionally permitted hospitals but excluded nursing homes, said: Nursing homes and hospitals are uses which in our view are so similar both physically and functionally that their disparate classification for zoning purposes could be justified only on compelling public policy grounds. We perceive none. We are aware that this court reached a different conclusion in Bellings v. Denville Tp., 96 N.J. Super. 351 (App.Div. 1967). But we point out that Bellings was decided prior to the virtual revolution in health care facility control and regulation effected by ( subsequent federal and state legislation and implementing administrative rules. It is * made abundantly clear by this complex of legislation that residential health care . facilities of whatever nature constitute an integrated, comprehensive system of health care delivery service subject to unified and integrated state policy, planning and control. See, e.g., N.J.S.A.26:2H-1, reposing in the State Department of Health “the central, comprehensive responsibility for the development and administration of the State’s policy with respect to health planning, hospital and related health care services...and all public and private institutions, which State, County, municipal, incorporated or not incorporated, serving