Yesterday’s state appellate court ruling ordering Superior Court in Monmouth County to hold a hearing on condemnation of 13 houses in Long Branch to determine if they are blighted before allowing a city redevelopment plan to move forward seems sensible to me, leaving in place municipal authority to take property — in exchange for fair-market value — but requiring towns to prove the properties are truly blighted.
The city sought to take 36 oceanfront houses, according to The Star-Ledger,
to continue its massive redevelopment project. Residents complained the city declared the entire area blighted without taking into consideration their well-maintained modest bungalows, where many had lived for more than 40 years.
Of the 36 properties sought, the majority have contracted with or sold to the developer. About 13 are fighting the condemnation.
The city argued the neighborhood had a high vacancy rate and some homes were in poor condition. Officials maintained market forces would not improve conditions.
The court did not see it that way. As the Ledger story points out, New Jersey towns have “a constitutional right … to seize blighted property.” The problem, however, is that “a sweeping redevelopment law adopted in 1991” expanded the definition of blight “to include an ‘underutilized’ category, and towns began using it to remake old residential and industrial neighborhoods into large-scale developments.”
A 2007 state Supreme Court ruling — Gallenthin Realty Development Inc. vs. Borough of Paulsboro — changed that. As the Ledger says, the ruling ordered “that a finding of actual blight was needed before private property could be seized.”
The court on Thursday ruled that the city’s definition of blight did not meet the standard set by the court last year. The appellate court said
an area cannot be considered blighted solely because it generates a lower amount of property taxes for a municipality and less spending at local businesses than it would if it were redeveloped.
That would set a dangerous precedent, the court said, prompting seizures of property based on a “perceived insufficiency of wealth” and setting up a situation in which properties would be continuously subject to redevelopment.
“We conclude that, under Gallenthin’s heightened standard, the record does not contain substantial evidence to support the city’s findings under any of the subsections (of the state’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law) upon which it relied,” the court wrote yesterday.
The ruling makes sense. It protects homeowners while keeping alive the potential that a blighted area can be resurrected — but only if a municipality can prove “blight” to a judge. That creates a layer of oversight that hadn’t existed in the past.
This oversight is necessary, as the Ledger points out in an editorial today, because
Towns have seized private property to sell to developers with visions of shopping malls and luxury homes. In typical Jersey fashion, many of the deals here have involved builders with deep political connections. Many of the arrangements have lacked significant public input. Sometimes the towns haven’t even put the development deals up for competitive bid ding.
Often the use of eminent do main has become outright abuse, trampling the rights of poor or middle-class residents for projects that are only remotely related to “public use.”
This is why the court has stepped in. But we shouldn’t leave it to the courts; the Legislature needs to act to create specific guidelines defining blight and clarifying and tightening the process that towns must follow before an area can be designated for redevelopment, a private developer brought in and condemnations approved.
Hank Kalet 