Shakoor Supermarkets, Inc. v. Old Bridge Tp. Planning Bd., 420 N.J. Super. 193 (App. Div. 2011). This case dealt with the issue of how specific a public notice of a development application under the Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq. (“MLUL”), must be. That issue does not arise frequently, but the panel, with Judge Espinosa writing the opinion, had no trouble resolving the appeal here.
The development applicant sought to build a shopping center. The MLUL required the applicant to issue public notice of the application. The notice referred to “[c]onstruction of a main retail store of 150,000 [square feet].” At the public hearings on the application, “[t]here were numerous references to the fact that Walmart was the proposed tenant of the 150,000 square foot store.” Plaintiff, a local supermarket, objected to the development.
Despite plaintiff’s objection, the project received site plan approval. Plaintiff then appealed. The Law Division upheld the approval. On plaintiff’s further appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed.
The key issue on the appeal was whether the notice was sufficient. Under the MLUL, proper notice is jurisdictional, so that an invalid notice would have voided the development approval. Judge Espinosa rejected plaintiff’s argument that the notice was required to identify the 150,000 main retail store as a Wal-Mart. Citing prior cases, she stated that the notice need only have included a “common sense description of the nature of the application, such that the ordinary layperson could understand its potential impact on him or her.” There was no need for the notice to be “exhaustive.”
The language of the notice at issue adequately informed laypersons that a “big box store” was being proposed, and “alerted [the public] to the possible concerns, such as traffic, commonly associated with those stores, and, indeed, such concerns were expressed by members of the public at the hearings.” The notice was therefore sufficient.
This was the proper result. Requiring notices to be too involved runs the risk of making it harder for the public to understand what is at issue. This notice sufficiently alerted citizens to the nature of the proposed development. Though the court did not say so, to the extent that plaintiff wanted Wal-Mart’s name to be put before the public in the notice, hoping that the Wal-Mart name would generate opposition to assist plaintiff in its own opposition to the project, that is not a proper purpose of notice.
Plaintiff raised other issues as well. Judge Espinosa made short work of those arguments.