## Facts

- A New Jersey borough revised its zoning regulations and rezoned a residential area from an R-7.5 district to an R-5 district.
- The new R-5 district required minimum 50-foot frontage and 5,000-square-foot lots and also imposed (1) a maximum habitable floor area ratio (FAR) of 0.40 and (2) a separate maximum habitable floor area cap of 2,200 square feet for single-family homes, with the lower limit controlling.
- A developer owned approximately 27,000 square feet in the rezoned area and proposed subdividing into three conforming lots of about 9,066 square feet each.
- The developer sought to build approximately 2,500-square-foot homes on each lot; those homes complied with the 0.40 FAR but exceeded the 2,200-square-foot cap.
- The planning board denied subdivision approval to the extent it depended on exceeding the cap and denied the requested variance from the cap.
- The developer filed an action challenging the ordinance’s validity; while the case was pending, it resubmitted an application without seeking a variance and received subdivision approval conditioned on compliance with the 2,200-square-foot cap.

## Issues

1. Whether the Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) permits a municipality to impose an absolute maximum habitable floor area cap in addition to a FAR limit for single-family dwellings.
2. Whether the cap violated the MLUL’s uniformity requirement because its practical effect differed depending on lot size within the same zoning district.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed the judgment upholding the ordinance.
- The Court held that nothing in the MLUL prohibited adopting a maximum habitable floor area cap in addition to a FAR limit and that the ordinance was within municipal zoning authority under the MLUL.
- The Court held that the ordinance satisfied the MLUL’s uniformity requirement because the same FAR and the same 2,200-square-foot cap applied to all single-family dwellings within the district, even if the cap constrained some lots more than others.

## Legal Principles

- Municipal zoning ordinances are presumed valid; absent a clear statutory prohibition, courts generally sustain reasonable land-use regulations enacted under the MLUL.
- The MLUL authorizes municipalities to regulate building size and development intensity, including through dimensional controls that operate alongside FAR limits.
- A municipal regulation does not impermissibly “alter” an MLUL definition merely because it supplements a defined control (such as FAR) with an additional limitation, so long as it does not contradict the statute.
- The MLUL uniformity requirement is satisfied when the regulation applies equally by its terms to the relevant class of structures within the district; differing impacts caused by differing lot conditions do not, by themselves, establish non-uniform zoning.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of New Jersey upheld a zoning ordinance that paired a FAR limit with an absolute 2,200-square-foot cap on habitable floor area for single-family homes, concluding the MLUL permits such supplemental dimensional controls and that uniformity is not defeated solely because the cap affects larger lots more than smaller lots within the same district.


Rumson Estates, Inc. v. Mayor & Council of the Borough of Fair Haven, 177 N.J. 338, 828 A.2d 317 (N.J. 2003)