Property owners in land-use disputes with government agencies must exhaust all other remedies before they can sue over alleged substantive due process violations, and even then, there’s a high threshold of proof, a state appeals court says in a precedential ruling.
“We hold that substantive due process claims in a land use dispute requires both governmental misconduct that ‘shocks the conscience’ and exhaustion of remedies available under our land use law,” the Appellate Division held on April 15 in Rezem Family Associates v. Borough of Millstone, A-2290-09.
