CHRISTOPHER C. CONA, ETC. VS. TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON SHARON DOWNS, ETC. VS. BOROUGH OF PAULSBORO WILLIAM R. BRODY, ET AL. VS. CITY OF WOODBURY, ET AL. (L-1602-15, L-0180-16, L-0487-16 AND L-1102-15, GLOUCESTER COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)(CONSOLIDATED) - Publish

In these appeals, the panel considered whether fees imposed by defendant municipalities on multi-family rental property owners were solely for revenue generation as prohibited under Timber Glen Phase III, LLC v. Township of Hamilton, 441 N.J. Super. 514 (App. Div. 2015), or if they were reasonably related to the municipalities' exercise of their regulatory powers as authorized by statute. In Timber Glen, the court held that a municipality's license fee was ultra vires because "the power to regulate and to license, although related, are discrete" and that the power to regulate did not include the power to require a license and payment of a fee. However, the court noted that its "opinion [was] confined to the authority to license and [did] not address [a municipality's] regulatory or inspection authority granted by other statutes designed to assure rental premises remain safe, building and fire code compliant and structurally sound."

The trial court judges who considered the underlying matters in the present appeals dismissed plaintiffs' complaints after they found that the challenged ordinances were distinguishable from the ordinance invalidated in Timber Glen, as the fees were permissible under a municipality's regulatory powers in order to defray costs for the inspections or registration of rental units. The panel agreed with the trial court judges' conclusions but remanded for entry of an order directing that the reference to "license fees" be removed from the challenged ordinances to avoid any confusion.