Real Estate & Property Law

Call For Reform in New Jersey

By Alan Ackerman

R. William Potter provided the below opinion, calling 'inverse condemnation' the next battleground for reform.  The article is an insightful one, noting extreme difficulties facing those who live in an area designated as 'blighted'.

NJ Spotlight

The owner of a printing company told me he couldn't get financing to expand his business to take on new orders. Why? He's been in a blighted area for 15 years and no bank will touch blighted property.

A waterfront owner said he couldn't build on his valuable land or sell to a developer because it was slated for condemnation that had not occurred for more than a decade.

Another business owner (a client of ours) has been in a blighted area since 1996, but the city has proclaimed it will never use eminent domain. And in the most heartbreaking case, a woman's family needed to sell their beachfront home to pay for a medical operation but couldn't do so because it was in a 'blighted' zone dating to the mid 1990's.

So what's to be done? An eminent domain reform bill that died in the last legislative session had an automatic 'sunset date' on blighted areas of five years. That's still a long time to be 'imprisoned economically,' but at least it would have promised eventual relief.

It's time to remount efforts for such reform. It's the only way to help trapped owners who now must either endure the 'imprisonment' or turn again to the courts, the last bulwark against this continuing abuse of government power.

Full post as published by National Eminent Domain Blog on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).