South Seaside Park, a small, isolated community on a barrier island in Ocean County, should be permitted to secede from Berkeley Township and join neighboring Seaside Park after a decade of fights alleging that the municipality had failed them.
In a unanimous decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed lower court rulings that found Berkeley Township’s refusal to allow deannexation was “arbitrary and unreasonable,” and that residents of South Seaside Park had met the legal burden on all three prongs required for secession under state law.
South Seaside Park residents complained that a drive to reach the opposite side of the bay in Berkeley was fifteen miles and traversed seven municipalities.
“In the off-season, that trip can take a half hour,” said Justice Anne Patterson, who wrote the decision. “During the summer, it can take 45 minutes or more.”
The court zeroed in on misconduct by the Berkeley Township Planning Board and its retained professional planner, who, instead of acting as a neutral fact-finder, helped township officials strategize their opposition and even assisted in preparing witnesses. In what amounted to a withering rebuke, Patterson compared the planner’s actions to “a court-appointed expert participating in strategy sessions and witness preparation meetings for a party appearing before a court.”
The court found that the board “failed to function in its role as a disinterested, fair and impartial decisionmaker,” adding that residents were “denied a fair and impartial hearing on their petition.”
The decision marks the end of a lengthy and contentious legal and political battle that began in 2014, when South Seaside Park residents filed a petition—signed by over 60% of local voters—seeking to exit Berkeley Township. They argued that their community, separated from the township mainland by more than 13 miles and seven municipalities, had more in common with adjacent Seaside Park, where they did their shopping, socialized, and received emergency services.
The ruling also dismissed Berkeley’s financial objections. While the township claimed a loss of tax revenue and predicted rate hikes for mainland residents, the court found that “any economic loss… would be offset to some degree by cost savings,” and concluded the township would not suffer “significant injury.”
Berkeley officials had asked the court to exclude White Sands Beach—the only recreational facility in South Seaside Park—from deannexation. The court rejected that request outright, noting that it was clearly included in the original petition and had been considered throughout the legal proceedings.
The decision paves the way for South Seaside Park to be officially annexed by Seaside Park, pending a procedural vote by that borough’s governing body.
If approved quickly, voters in South Seaside Park could be transferred from the 9th legislative district to the 10th in time for the 2025 general election.