## Facts

- Central Towers Company owned and operated a high-rise apartment building in the Borough of Fort Lee, New Jersey, with approximately 280 apartments and about 400 indoor and outdoor garage/parking spaces.
- The parking spaces were offered for an additional charge. Parking arrangements were documented separately from the apartment leases, but, as a practical matter, a tenant’s parking agreement usually began and ended on the same dates as the apartment lease.
- Le Cross Associates operated a high-rise residential and commercial complex in Fort Lee with an indoor parking garage and rented parking spaces under separate agreements to tenants of both its residential and commercial units; the timing of apartment and parking agreements was typically concurrent.
- A third set of plaintiffs (the Mediterranean Towers entities) operated two large apartment buildings with a two-story garage and outdoor parking, with parking provided under separate license-type agreements.
- Fort Lee had a rent-control/rent-leveling ordinance (Ordinance 74-32) administered by the Borough’s Rent Leveling Board. The ordinance regulated rent increases for “housing space” and related terms as defined in the ordinance.
- The Rent Leveling Board treated garage and parking charges as part of regulated “rent,” charged the owners with violations for increasing those charges beyond ordinance limits, and ordered adjustments/refunds on the theory that parking was part of the regulated housing rental package.
- The owners filed consolidated actions in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and review of the Board’s determinations. They argued the ordinance did not reach separately licensed parking/garage spaces and that the Board exceeded its authority by regulating those charges.

## Issues

1. Does Fort Lee Rent Control Ordinance 74-32 regulate charges for garage and parking spaces when those spaces are provided to apartment tenants under separate license or rental agreements?
2. If the ordinance’s terms could be read to cover parking, did the Rent Leveling Board act beyond its delegated authority by treating parking charges as “rent” for “housing space” and ordering refunds and adjustments?

## Decision

- The Law Division held that, on these facts, garage and parking spaces rented to tenants under separate agreements were not “housing space” within the meaning of the Fort Lee rent-control ordinance.
- The court concluded that the charges for those garage/parking spaces were therefore not “rent” subject to the ordinance’s rent-increase limitations.
- The court found the Rent Leveling Board lacked authority to extend the ordinance to separately licensed parking arrangements and could not, by interpretation, expand the ordinance’s coverage beyond what its language fairly covered.
- The court granted relief to the plaintiffs, declaring the ordinance inapplicable to the garage/parking charges at issue and invalidating the Board’s determinations to the extent they regulated those charges.

## Legal Principles

- Rent-control ordinances restrict common-law property rights and are construed narrowly; regulation is limited to what the ordinance clearly covers.
- When an ordinance regulates “housing space” and residential rent, separate agreements for ancillary items such as garage or parking space licenses are not treated as regulated rent absent clear ordinance language.
- An administrative board may not enlarge its jurisdiction by stretching definitions; it cannot regulate subject matter that is not fairly within the ordinance’s terms.
- The fact that a parking agreement often begins and ends with the apartment lease does not, by itself, convert parking charges into apartment rent where the parking is separately contracted for and separately priced.

## Conclusion

The Law Division ruled that Fort Lee’s rent-control ordinance governing “housing space” did not apply to separately licensed garage and parking spaces associated with plaintiffs’ apartment complexes, and that the Rent Leveling Board exceeded its authority by treating parking charges as regulated rent and ordering refunds and adjustments based on that theory.


Central Towers Co. v. Borough of Fort Lee, 390 A.2d 677 (1978)