78 N.J.L. 205 | N.J. | 1909
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The prosecutor was assessed for taxes of 1908 on about seven and two-thirds acres of land in the city of Hoboken, and claims exemption under placitum 4 of section 3 of tire General Tax act of 1903. Pamph. L., p. 394. The pertinent provisions of the act are fully quoted in the opinion of this court in a f ormer suit between the same parties, which opinion is reported in 45 Vroom 80. As in that case, the controversy involves the land adjoining and perhaps that underlying the building known as the “Morton laboratory,” but the outlying lands now sought to be declared exempt are not the same, and it is to these last that the principal dispute relates.
It is not denied that the prosecutor is a college or academy not conducted for profit, and as such entitled to the exemptions conferred by the section cited. The question now to be determined is whether the lands included in the writ are, within the meaning of the statute, lands whereon the buildings of the prosecutor “are situated, necessary to the fair use and enjoyment thereof, not exceeding five acres in extent for each.”
Until very recently Stevens Institute was a compact group of buildings, all situated on the block bounded west by Hudson, east by River, south by Fifth and north by Sixth street in Hoboken. North of Sixth street is the Stevens family property, known as Oastle 'Point, bounded on the west by Hudson street, on the north in part by Eighth street, and on
The present situation is very different. The institute has parted with the easterly portion of the four and five hundred and sixty-two thousandths acre tract, retaining of it a rectangle of one and six hundred and ninety thousandths acres, one hundred and seventy-five by four hundred and twenty-five feet, less one small corner, the southerly end being occupied by the laboratory, and in lieu of the land disposed of has acquired land as far as Eighth street on the north and Hudson street on the west, making a continuous tract besides the land immediately adjoining the laboratory, of approximately six hundred and fifty feet in length by four hundred and fifty feet in wfidth or about seven acres. Counsel for prosecutors call this a “campus,” but. the map they submit shows that it is an athletic field, with grandstand, field-house, “bleachers,” two-hundred-and-twonty-yard straightaway and half mile oval, besides room for baseball, football and lawn tennis. The president testifies that an athletic field is a distinct necessity in connection with the obtaining of a higher degree of efficiency in instruction. Conceding this for the sake of argument, we are unable to see that it brings the athletic field within the exemption of the statute. The exemption conferred is of land both necessary to the fair use and enjoyment