Case Law Summaries

The Medical Center at Princeton v. The Township of Princeton Zoning Board of Adjustment

• Opinion Date: June 28, 2001
• Real Property Law
• E-Mail

ZONING; ACCESSORY USES—Accounting, public relations, planning, fund-raising, and purchasing offices in separate facilities, if necessary to a hospital’s functioning, geographically proximate, and closely related to the hospital’s core use, may be accessory hospital uses entitled to the presumption that they are inherently beneficial uses for zoning purposes.

A municipality and a hospital battled over whether the hospital could have a conditional use variance to locate an accounting, public relations, planning, fund-raising, and purchasing offices in a number of houses. The houses were located on a residential street, in a residential zone, along the edge of the hospital’s complex. The relationship between the hospital and the municipality was not only long-standing, but the municipality’s Master Plan pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL) specifically addressed a number of aspects concerning the hospital’s land uses. To protect the residential character of the neighborhood adjacent to the hospital, the Master Plan specifically recommended that “non-profit institutions should also be discouraged from purchasing private residences for non-residential use in adjacent residential neighborhoods to protect the small-scale character of those neighborhoods.” Essentially, the test to determine whether the hospital would be entitled to a use variance is embodied in the MLUL, specifically, “[n]o variance or other relief may be granted under the terms of this section, including a variance or other relief involving an inherently beneficial use, without a showing that such variance or other relief can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good and will not substantially impair the intent and the purpose of the zone plan and zoning ordinance.” Normally, an applicant must prove both positive and negative criteria to obtain a use variance. “In general, the positive criteria require that an applicant establish ‘special reasons’ for granting the variance,” and “[t]he negative criteria require proof that the variance ‘can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good’ and that it ‘will not substantially impair the intent and purpose of the zone plan and zoning ordinance.” However, “if the proposed use is inherently beneficial, the applicant’s burden proof is significantly lessened because ‘an inherently beneficial use presumptively satisfies the positive criteria.’ In the case before the Court, the zoning board and an intervenor asserted that the hospital’s proposed uses of the properties for support offices did not qualify as inherently beneficial uses. There was no issue that a hospital is an “indisputably inherently beneficial” use. The question before the Court, however, was whether each of the separate parts of an inherently beneficial use – here, the purchasing, finance, fund-raising, public relations, marketing and planning offices of the hospital – were to be considered part of that hospital’s inherently beneficial use for land purposes. Prior case law stated that “hospital purposes include a variety of activities when undertaken to support the operation of a hospital.” A Pennsylvania court pointed out that “hospital offices are just as much a hospital as patient rooms.” Here, the Court viewed such cases as advancing “the recognition that modern hospital operations involve more than simply patient beds or direct medical services. Nonetheless, the Court considered it to be a “critical issue” whether “back-office” functions should be addressed in a vacuum as contrasted to being seen as a function “within the context of the entire operation” of an underlying inherently beneficial use. Another consideration was whether the physical location of a back-office operation should be considered as a relevant factor in an application for relief as an inherently beneficial use. To this, the Court mused that it was an evolving issue. While looking at prior case law, especially those dealing with communication towers, the Court held that proximity of facilities is part of the matrix in determining the threshold issue of whether a use is inherently beneficial. In fact, the Court cited an earlier case that found that a school bus facility was “necessarily accessory” to the school buildings themselves. As a rule, the Court concluded that “where a board is reviewing an application for a variance in conjunction with an existing inherently beneficial use, the board may consider the location of the proposed use in its analysis of whether the proposed use falls within the scope of the original use.” Further, the Court held that in addition to considering the property’s location, a board “must consider the specific function of the proposed use and its relationship to the hospital in assessing the umbrella effect of the inherently beneficial use status of the hospital.” The Court capsulized the board’s argument as being “that there is nothing inherently beneficial about these office uses to require their placement in a residential zone,” and that there were other zones in the municipality available to accommodate such back-office needs. The Court felt that the board’s point was “undoubtedly true; however, the proposed back-office uses cannot be assessed in a vacuum – they may be considered with due regard being given to the necessity of proximity to the hospital.” Further, such an assessment must be addressed on a use-by-use basis. The Court believed that the board didn’t consider whether each of the proposed uses might require direct and immediate access to the main hospital. As a result, it remanded the matter to the board and imposed the burden on the hospital “to present the necessary proofs to specifically establish that a) the nature of the particular function, and b) how such function is integrated into the core function of the wholly beneficial use, and c) why the location of each particular function is critical to fulfilling the mission and primary objective of the inherently beneficial use.” Having defined a rule that changed the nature of the proofs required, the Court pointed out that the hospital would be given an opportunity to meet the burden imposed by the new rule. In essence, the primary question that the board needed to address on remand was whether a particular use must be adjacent to the hospital. Lastly, the Court required the board to reconsider whether each proposed use was inherently beneficial by considering its relationship to the hospital, as well as whether the variances requested satisfied the negative criteria. “Back-office uses are neither singular in nature or function.” Further, “the classic operation of a medical facility as a place to attend to the ill and infirm is not as simple as stated in the proposition. ... [T]he delivery of medical care is in a state of change.”

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