Planning Report Zinnia Health West Orange NJ

Planning Report – Zinnia Health November 8, 2024 33 Mount Pleasant Avenue, West Orange NJ John McDonough Associates, LLC Land Use Planning · Landscape Architecture 6 101 Gibraltar Drive, Suite 1A, Morris Plains, NJ 07950 · Phone: 973.222.6011 · Fax: 973.786.6537 • It was also held that nursing homes and hospitals are uses which are so similar, both physically and functionally, that their disparate classification for zoning purposes cannot be justified. Urban Farms, Inc. v. Franklin Lakes, 179 N.J. Super. 203 (App. Div. 1981), certif. den. 87 N.J. 428 (1981). See also P.D.M. Constr. Corp. v. Welsh, 89 N.J. Super. 460, 464 (Law Div. 1965), aff'd 91 N.J. Super. 125 (App. Div. 1966), noting that there was no question but that private nursing homes served the general welfare as much as public. And see Mercurio v. Delvecchio, 285 N.J. Super. 328, 336-337 (App. Div. 1995), certif. den. 144 N.J. 377 (1996) noting that nursing homes are inherently beneficial uses. • Because medical and nursing home facilities tend to involve very intensive use of property, there has been a great deal of focus on the negative criteria when applications for such facilities come before boards. The negative criteria are discussed at 8-2. For purposes of this discussion it is important to note that in reviewing board denials of such applications, courts have emphasized the positive criteria, that is, the particularly great benefits to the community at large inherent in these uses. In Sica v. Board of Adjustment of Tp. of Wall, 127 N.J. 152 (1992) the Court reinstated Law Division approval of a variance to permit a 40 bed residential facility for the rehabilitation of head trauma victims in a residential district. • In Meridian Hosps. v. Point Pleasant, 325 N.J. Super. 490 (App. Div. 1999), certif. den. 163 N.J. 80 (2000), the court set aside the denial of a variance for a nursing home on the 3rd and 4th floors of an existing hospital. There the Board had erroneously linked the arrival of the nursing home to the departure of acute care facilities from the hospital. The court found that the two were not linked and moreover that it was beyond the zoning power to attempt to control hospital resources that were entirely under the regulatory control of the DHSS. • In Jayber, Inc. v. Municipal Council, 238 N.J. Super. 165 (App. Div.), certif. den. 122 N.J. 142 (1990), where the governing body

sources that were entirely under the regulatory control of the DHSS. • In Jayber, Inc. v. Municipal Council, 238 N.J. Super. 165 (App. Div.), certif. den. 122 N.J. 142 (1990), where the governing body reversed the grant of a variance for a congregate care housing facility for senior citizens on a tract of land upon which a nursing home, hospital and sanitarium already existed, the decision was reversed by the Appellate Division and the variance granted by the board of adjustment was reinstated. Although the congregate care facility was to be operated as a profit making enterprise the court pointed out that the Supreme Court in Medici v. BPR Co., 107 N.J. 1, 18 (1987) recognized that there are some commercial uses which do "inherently serve the general welfare." The Jayber court found that the proposed use would in fact promote the general welfare as had been determined by the board of adjustment. • The Supreme Court in Sica v. Board of Adjustment of Tp. of Wall, 127 N.J. 152, 160 (1992), has held that the site suitability test does not apply to inherently beneficial uses. The designation of a use as inherently beneficial has been characterized as an "analytic short-cut", i.e. a "convenient shorthand in clear-cut cases for the analysis of positive criteria that would otherwise be required." Bell Atlantic v. Riverdale Zoning, 352 N.J. Super. 407, 411 n.2 (App. Div. 2002).