A neighborhood in Egg Harbor Township filed a petition for deannexation under N.J.S.A. 40A:7-12, seeking to annex their small community to the neighboring Borough of Longport. The township referred the matter to its Planning Board, which held hearings and denied the petition. The plaintiffs then filed suit, and the Law Division affirmed the Board’s ruling. On appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the court’s order, primarily contending that the judge erred when he concluded that Egg Harbor’s residents would suffer significant harm if deannexation were approved and that this harm outweighed the injury Seaview residents would suffer by being a part of Egg Harbor. The Appellate Division found particularly persuasive that a petition under N.J.S.A. 40:7-12.1 may be appropriately denied where a court concludes that a municipality’s decision was neither arbitrary nor unreasonable and that it would be detrimental to the majority of residents despite the undisputed fact that deannexation would produce considerable property tax savings for the petitioning homeowners, who seek to become part of a lower tax municipality.
