Gee, whatever gave you that idea?
Posted on 06/24/2005 10:19:47 AM PDT by dead
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a ruling watched closely in New Jersey, on Thursday upheld a Connecticut city's right to seize homes and other properties solely for economic development.
The 5-4 decision is likely to make it easier for dozens of North Jersey towns to use eminent domain condemnations in similar ways, supporters and opponents of the decision agreed.
"Englewood, Ridgefield, Passaic - many towns have been adopting plans in the past several years based on economic redevelopment, and I believe this means that it's now full-steam ahead," said Bruce Rosenberg, a land-use attorney for the Hackensack-based law firm of Winne, Banta, Hetherington, Basralian & Kahn.
"This is what could be called the Supreme Court's imprimatur on those efforts, basically adopting what New Jersey already has adopted in its legislation."
Clifton, Lodi, Paterson and Hawthorne are among the other North Jersey communities using or considering using eminent domain condemnations for economic purposes.
Fair-housing groups and potentially displaced tenants were among those who railed against the court's refusal, in the Kelo v. New London case, to reverse decades of broadening use of eminent domain, which at one time restricted the taking of property to such public benefits as highways and bridges.
"This creates open season on neighborhoods," said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club.
In Ridgefield, where more than 60 businesses in a 30-acre tract have been earmarked for redevelopment, the decision disappointed business owners.
"It gives local governments too much power," said Thomas Bonanno III, whose family-owned real estate group rents commercial space to 27 companies, employing more than 150 people in the area.
"It destroys people's livelihoods and takes away their property."
The linchpin of the Ridgefield plan is the 15-acre site of the former Pfister Chemical plant, next to Overpeck Creek and south of Route 46. It includes an abandoned factory, loading docks and chemical tanks.
Alan Mallach, research director for the Montclair-based National Housing Institute, said he did not object to the court's upholding of the principle of eminent domain.
"But what the court didn't recognize is that there is a real problem of abuse in a whole bunch of towns in New Jersey, where the economic redevelopment power is used in areas where the main objection is that there are too many poor people there or too many renters, " Mallach said.
"I personally think that there ought to be some constraints."
Former Fair Lawn Mayor Ed Trawinski, an attorney with expertise in land use and zoning, said the power of municipalities is now so broad that a town council could, for instance, condemn a city block simply to replace large-family dwellings with residential options that would require fewer city services.
But Scott Mollen, an attorney for Herrick Feinstein, which has offices in Newark and Princeton, said that the court properly recognized that New London is an economically depressed town that needs to change with the times.
"The majority recognized that the benefits to the community at large outweigh the rights of an individual property owner to, in essence, block important urban redevelopment, especially when the law already requires that an owner receive fair and just compensation," Mollen said.
Lodi trailer park residents have a court date for July 18, when they hope to prevent losing their homes to a private developer's plan to construct a gated senior-living community and retail property on the land. "It certainly would have been helpful if they placed some limitations on its [eminent domain's] use," said Kendall Kardt, president of Save Our Homes, the group organizing the legal fight for residents of Brown's Trailer Park and Costa Trailer Court.
Lodi Mayor Gary Paparozzi called the ruling a "shot in the arm" for the borough.
"The trailer park is like a poster child for redevelopment," Paparozzi said. "That's the best-case scenario for using eminent domain."
Mary Gail Snyder, research fellow for the National Housing Institute, said that the trend toward waterfront development in New Jersey in areas such as Hoboken and Jersey City is not necessarily affected, because most of that land consists of large parcels with a single owner.
"But this ruling could now allow the same market trend to expand even to where there are neighborhoods," she said. "Before, developers were discouraged from that, because you'd have a lot of small landowners and it would have been harder to get all of them to agree [to sell]."
The ruling was hailed by Newark Mayor Sharpe James, whose city is planning a $550 million, 2,000-condominium project on a 13-acre parcel that was declared blighted for eminent domain purposes in November.
"Our Mulberry Street project is a clear example of the Supreme Court ruling where the future of the city is more important than private profit motivations," James said in a statement.
Mollen, the lawyer, disputed contentions that Thursday's ruling will dramatically affect the New Jersey redevelopment landscape.
"Most government agencies already have been proceeding on the assumption that economic development is a valid justification [for invoking eminent domain]," Mollen said. "I don't expect any unleashing of massive new development."
Supporters and opponents both agreed on one thing: The ruling does not preclude the state Legislature in Trenton from passing a law restricting the use of eminent domain.
"If a state wants to set the bar higher for eminent domain use, it still can," said Dianne Brake, president of the Trenton-based Regional Planning Partnership. "The process has to be transparent, for instance, to help avoid having graft come into play."
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority that it was up to local officials, not federal judges, to determine what uses of eminent domain are beneficial.
The court's other left-leaning judges agreed, while moderate Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in her dissent of a concern that "disproportionate influence and power" was being granted to municipalities.
Staff Writers John Gavin and Jaci Smith contributed to this article, which also contains material from The Associated Press.
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We in Ohio have Youngstown, which makes New Jersey look like Sunday School.
Next comes finding the 2nd amendment unconstitutional so that there will be no armed rebellion.
? actually it's simpler then that.
Simply excercise eminant domain over the property (guns) for the public good.
Just watch , I bet it won't be month before it happens somewhere.
New Jersey--whose population density exceeded that of Japan and India years ago.
Overcrowding is the problem.
In an overcrowded lifeboat there's no such thing as private property. It's share and share alike.
Population growth from immigration is costing you your freedoms.
Just do like everyone else in your state has done or is in the process of doing and move to Florida.
Gee, whatever gave you that idea?
Exactly. Like my post on the NJ board, Piscataway no longer has to even use the ruse of "Open Spaces" to condemn the Cornell Dairy Farm. Now Jack Morris can go ahead with his townhouse/shopping center plan he's had on paper for years and use his corrupt political cronies to use the tax revenue from his development as the impetus for eminent domain.
The Halpers don't help themselves by leaving the farm in such disrepair. I can only assume the family eats based on the money they get from the Federal government for not growing anything.
Still the proletariats of the People's Republic of Piscataway vote the scoundrels into office again and again.
And Dead, your comments on this thread are cracking me up!
"Dozens of towns thrilled"
You're not kidding. The old timers who have been living down the Jersey shore their entire lives are especially at risk.
Sorry to offend anyone :) I'm not saying I like people losing their land and being given a crappy price, or being forced to lose their house whether they like it or not. I just understand how a city might like the ability to get rid of low-income housing areas and the crime and deterioration associated with it. They get paid, we pay for it, granted, but we reap benefits later - that's the idea at any rate. One thing I would like is there to be very public oversight of any such goings-on and the like. Unless I'm wrong, this kind of power would be used in areas with no clear purpose or reason in its makeup, with houses right next to overpasses, condos and strip malls overlapping in crime-ridden areas, etc. I can't see it happening in nice planned communities like Reston in Virginia, for example.
Whatever happened to the little old lady in Atlantic City who refused to sell her house to Trump so he could expand the parking lot of his casino?
She better start packing.
Yeah? And I like the idea of having a harem and growing wings. I'd also like a government that does its job. It's number ONE job.
Protect my Rights.
"Governments are instituted among men..." and all that. A governments ONLY ethical job is to proect the Rights of its citizens. Not act as the agent destroying those Rights. Regardless of reason.
Well, it's what the expression "up in arms" means. Or meant, anyway. (I don't supposed a bunch of unarmed DUers could do anything other than wave their hands about in the air... ) Do you suppose some, just some, of them might reconsider their position on the meaning of the Second Amendment in light of this decision?
Absolutely. And no one gets this.
I can't imagine that the Supreme Court did not at least see the potential for graft from this ruling. They must have been drinking. RE contributions, I wouldn't exclude local Republicans from getting in the act either.
I suppose it's only to be expected that liberals would support this. After all, the rights of the state must trump those of the individual.
Well, it's getting worse than isn't it?
Actually, they have no problem with wealth redistribution as long as it's takey from 'the wealthy'. It's redistribution from the poor and middle class to corporate developers that they oppose.
Do you know one single thing about the case behind the decision yesterday? The neighborhood being condemned is a nice working-class neighborhood like many of our parents and grandparents grew up in. It's being taken because someone else is going to bring the city more money.
And what does "no clear purpose or reason" mean if it's someone's land?
I can't see it happening in nice planned communities like Reston in Virginia, for example.
I can't see it happening to Hillary's house in Chappaqua or John Kerry's in Boston, either, which is the entire problem. They will mainly pick on people who can't afford to defend themselves, and the decision yesterday means they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of appealing the decision to throw them out.
Why should we be herded into "nice planned communities" anyway? Do you think it's fair or just that planned communities would be safer (they're not, but answer the question anyway)? Why is someone who is poor, or someone who doesn't want to live in suburbia with his neighbors in his armpits, less worthy of having his rights protected?
And of course there is no reason not to think government won't use it wisely. /sarc
"I can speak from personal experience to tell you that in NJ this will be used to make the democrats' cronies richer and more powerful. "
Taking property from landowners is so common in central NJ, no one even NOTICES anymore! Take a look at New Brunswick; most of this was done because John Lynch (Jim McGreevey's mentor) wants to make the city a memorial to his greed and corruption.
Some states might be able to get their pols to pass laws restricting the use of eminent domain to enrich the contributors of Democrats at the expense of landowners. But I absolutely GUARANTEE New Jersey will NEVER be among them.
http://www.theempirejournal.com/
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