## Facts

- Dumont amended its zoning ordinance to reclassify Block 197, at Dumont’s northeast border, from A and B residential to a D business district to permit commercial development, including a proposed shopping center.
- Block 197 directly faced established residential neighborhoods across the municipal boundary in Cresskill, Demarest, and Haworth.
- Neighboring boroughs, multiple residents and property owners (including some outside Dumont), and Dumont residents sued to invalidate the amendment; the Wendlands, owners of property on Block 197, filed a separate action that was consolidated.
- Plaintiffs alleged the amendment was not in accordance with a comprehensive zoning plan, ignored cross-boundary residential impacts, and constituted impermissible spot zoning conferring a private benefit akin to a variance without statutory variance procedures.
- Dumont defended the amendment as a valid exercise of zoning power and challenged plaintiffs’ standing and propriety as parties.
- The Law Division set aside the amendment as invalid; Dumont appealed, and the state supreme court took the case by certification.

## Issues

1. Whether neighboring municipalities and non-resident property owners directly affected by an adjacent municipality’s rezoning have standing to challenge the ordinance.
2. Whether rezoning a single border tract from residential to business was adopted in accordance with a comprehensive plan and the general welfare, or instead constituted unlawful spot zoning (and a de facto variance for private benefit).

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment setting aside the amendment.
- Neighboring municipalities and affected non-resident property owners had standing because the rezoning’s effects extended beyond Dumont and directly and specially impacted adjacent residential areas.
- The amendment was invalid because it was not in accordance with a comprehensive plan and amounted to impermissible spot zoning.
- The ordinance functioned in substance as a variance-like accommodation for a particular tract without use of statutory board-of-adjustment safeguards.

## Legal Principles

- Standing to challenge zoning is not limited to residents of the enacting municipality; adjacent municipalities and nearby non-resident owners may sue when they show direct, particularized injury from cross-boundary land-use effects.
- Zoning amendments must be in accordance with a comprehensive plan and must serve the general welfare rather than confer a special advantage on a single parcel or owner.
- Spot zoning is invalid where a small tract is singled out from a larger, consistent district for a materially different use without a planning justification connected to the municipality’s overall scheme and the welfare of the affected area.
- Municipal boundary lines do not insulate zoning decisions from review when the practical impacts are regional; valid planning may require attention to inter-municipal conditions.
- A municipality may not evade statutory variance procedures by using an ordinance amendment to accomplish what is essentially a variance for private benefit.

## Conclusion

The court upheld broad standing for neighboring towns and nearby owners to contest a border-area rezoning and invalidated Dumont’s single-tract change from residential to business as noncomprehensive spot zoning that effectively conferred a variance-like private benefit without required procedural protections.


Borough of Cresskill v. Borough of Dumont, 104 A.2d 441 (N.J. 1954)