The Board of Adjustment shall elect a Chairperson
and Vice Chairperson from its members and shall also elect a Secretary
who may be either a Board member or another Borough employee.
There is hereby created the office of Attorney
to the Zoning Board of Adjustment. The Zoning Board of Adjustment
may annually appoint, fix the compensation of or agree upon the rate
of compensation of the Zoning Board of Adjustment Attorney, who shall
be an attorney other than the Borough Attorney.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment may also employ
or contract for and fix the compensation of such experts and other
staff and services as it may deem necessary. The Board shall not authorize
expenditures which exceed, exclusive of gifts or grants, the amount
appropriated by the Borough Council for its use.
The Board shall adopt such rules and regulations
as may be necessary to carry into effect the provisions and purposes
of this chapter. In the issuance of subpoenas, administration of oaths
and taking of testimony, the provisions of the County and Municipal
Investigations Law of 1953, N.J.S.A. 2A:67A-1 et seq., shall apply.
In exercising the above-mentioned power, the
Board of Adjustment may, in conformity with the provisions of N.J.S.A.
40:55D-1 et seq., or amendments thereto or subsequent statutes applying,
reverse or affirm, wholly or partly, or may modify the order, requirement,
decision or determination as ought to be made and to that end have
all the powers of the administrative officer from whom the appeal
was taken.
Any variance from the terms of this chapter
hereafter granted by the Board of Adjustment permitting the erection
or alteration of any structure or structures or permitting a specified
use of any premises shall expire by limitation unless such construction
or alteration shall have been actually commenced on each and every
structure permitted by such variance or unless such permitted use
has actually been commenced within nine months from the date of entry
of the judgment or determination of the Board of Adjustment, except
that the running of the period of limitation herein provided shall
be tolled from the date of filing an appeal from the decision of the
Board of Adjustment to the Borough Council or to a court of competent
jurisdiction until the termination in any manner of such appeal or
proceeding.
The Board of Adjustment shall have such powers
as are granted by law as follows:
A. Appeals. To hear and decide appeals where it is alleged by the appellant that there is error in any order, requirement, decision or refusal made by an administrative official or agency based on or made in the enforcement of Chapter
230, Zoning.
B. Interpretation of the map or Chapter
230, Zoning. To hear and decide requests for interpretation of the map or Chapter
230, Zoning, or for decisions upon other special questions upon which such Board is authorized by Chapter
230, Zoning.
C. Variance for hardship. Where by reason of exceptional narrowness, shallowness or shape of a specific piece of property or by reason of exceptional topographic conditions or physical features uniquely affecting a specific piece of property or by reason of an extraordinary and exceptional situation uniquely affecting a specific piece of property or the structures lawfully existing thereon the strict application of any regulation in Chapter
230, Zoning, would result in peculiar and exceptional and practical difficulties to or exceptional and undo hardship upon the developer of such property, to grant, upon an application or an appeal relating to such property, a variance from such strict application of such regulations so as to relieve such difficulties or hardships; and where in an application or appeal relating to a specific piece of property the purposes of the Municipal Land Use Law would be advanced by a deviation from the requirements of Chapter
230, Zoning, and the benefits of the deviation would substantially outweigh any detriment, to grant a variance to allow departure from the regulation of Chapter
230, Zoning; provided, however, that no variance from those departures enumerated in Subsection
D of this section shall be granted under this subsection; and provided, further, that the proposed development does not require the approval of the Planning Board of a subdivision, site plan or conditional use in conjunction with which the Planning Board has power to review a request for a variance pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-60a.
D. District variance.
(1) In particular cases and for special reasons, the Board of Adjustment shall have the power to grant a variance to allow departure from the regulations of Chapter
230, Zoning, to permit:
(a)
A use or principal structure in a district restricted
against such use or principal structure.
(b)
An expansion of a nonconforming use.
(c)
Deviation from a specification or standard pursuant
to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-67 pertaining solely to conditional uses.
(d)
An increase in the permitted floor area ratio
as defined in Section 3.1 of P.L. 1975, c. 291 (N.J.S.A. 40:55D-4).
(e)
An increase in the permitted density as defined
in N.J.S.A. 40:55D-4, except as applied to the required lot area for
a lot or lots for detached one- or two-dwelling-unit buildings, which
lot or lots are either in isolated undersized lot or lots resulting
from a minor subdivision.
(2) A variance under this subsection shall be granted
only by affirmative vote of at least five members of the full authorized
membership of the Board.
E. Prohibition. No variance or other relief may be granted under the provisions under this section unless such variance or other relief can be granted without substantial detriment to the public good and will not substantially impair the intent and purpose of the zone plan and Chapter
230, Zoning. Any application under any subsection of this section may be referred to any appropriate person or agency for its report, provided that such reference shall not extend the period of time in which the Zoning Board of Adjustment shall act.