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Court opinion with map:
Within New Jersey, Berkeley Township* contains 41,000 inhabitants. Within Berkeley, the neighborhood of South Seaside Park contains 490 inhabitants. Prior to year 1875, the entire area was a contiguous mass called Dover Township, with South Seaside Park sitting at the tip of a barrier
<del>island</del><ins>peninsula</ins>that was connected directly to the rest of Dover with a bridge. However, over the years, the creation of Berkeley from Dover's land, and the creation of other municipalities from Berkeley's land, caused South Seaside Park to become separated from the rest of Berkeley by a 13-mile (21-kilometer) drive that takes 30 minutes at the best of times, and during summer can be as long as 45 minutes due to beach traffic.Under New Jersey law, a neighborhood can secede from its municipality if (1) three-fifths of its registered voters sign a petition requesting secession, and (2) (a) the municipal council grants consent by a two-thirds vote, or (b) the municipal council refuses consent but (i) the refusal is arbitrary or unreasonable, (ii) the refusal is detrimental to the well-being of the neighborhood, and (iii) the secession would not significantly injure the rump municipality. Accordingly, in year 2014, two-thirds of South Seaside Park's registered voters sign such a petition, seeking to secede from Berkeley Township and join Seaside Park Borough, which is South Seaside Park's sole neighbor on the barrier peninsula. The resulting hearings last into year 2019. In year 2020, the Berkeley council finally refuses consent, and the petitioners file a lawsuit, alleging that the refusal met the aforementioned criteria i–iii.
In year 2022, the trial judge rules for the petitioners. (i) The members of the municipal council were supposed to be impartial arbiters, but instead they were vociferously opposed to the secession, and even enlisted the municipality's contracted licensed planner to help them argue against it. (ii) "Substantially all" of Berkeley's services are based in the mainland, a zillion miles away from South Seaside Park. Inhabitants of South Seaside Park can't even watch Berkeley's council meetings on their cable-television subscriptions because South Seaside Park has a different cable provider. It would be much more convenient for South Seaside Park's inhabitants if they could get municipal services from Seaside Park Borough instead. (iii) Despite constituting only 1 percent of Berkeley's population, the beachfront community of South Seaside Park contains a whopping 11 percent of Berkeley's taxable property value. So it is true that the secession would cause taxes in the rump Berkeley to rise by 3 percent. But that does not rise to the level of "significant injury" that the law requires, and the calculation of 3 percent does not even take into account the ameliorating facts that (1) secession would let the rump Berkeley save money by ceasing to provide any services to distant South Seaside Park, and (2) South Seaside Park already is completely developed, while rump Berkeley still would have lots of empty land to be built on**, so South Seaside Park's proportion of Berkeley's taxable property value would shrink in the future. Therefore, South Seaside Park must be permitted to secede. The appeals panel affirms in year 2024, and the state supreme court follows suit in year 2025 (linked at the top of this comment).
Note that Seaside Park Borough has not actually agreed to annex South Seaside Park. It would be a hilarious anticlimax if Seaside Park did not agree. Apparently, though, this anticlimax really did happen fifty years ago, after a similar petition-plus-lawsuit rigmarole was won by the father of the leader of the current secession initiative.
*In many states of the USA, a township is an "unincorporated" subdivision of a county, and exists only on paper. However, New Jersey is one of the few states where a township is just an ordinary "incorporated", fully realized municipality.
**The empty portion of South Seaside Park that is visible on the map is an unbuildable state park. The empty portion of rump Berkeley does have a lot of overlap with New Jersey's protected Pinelands area, but that makes building merely difficult, not impossible.
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