City tries to grab properties simply ‘to give it to someone else,’ now court has final say

Laws across American give local, state and national government authorities that private citizens don’t have.

One of those is the power of eminent domain, which is when a government confiscates a private property and uses it for a “public purpose.”

Sometimes the definition of that “public” goal is a little clouded, as governments sometimes turn confiscated property over to another private owner for his or her use.

Multiple court fights have developed over the practice, and there have been many widely disparate results.

But one case in New Jersey has come down clearly on the side of private property owners.

City officials in Perth Amboy there wanted to take over two properties, a rental serving several families and a successful tire shop, simply “to give it to someone else.”

According to the Institute for Justice, Judge Benjamin Bucca Jr. in Superior Court in Middlesex County, ruled in favor of the arguments brought by Honey Meerzon and Luis Romero.

City officials had claimed the properties were “blighted” and that gave them permission to take them away.

Such designations often “indicate properties in disrepair that the government wants to seize for redevelopment.”

But in this cases, the properties weren’t blighted.

“Today’s ruling means the government can’t take away your livelihood just because they want to give it to someone else,” Meerzon said in a statement released through IJ.

The two plaintiffs own adjacent properties and “Perth Amboy wanted to take the two properties for no other reason than it wanted different businesses instead,” the IJ said.

“Today’s ruling means that the Court saw this ‘blight’ determination for what it was: a city’s naked attempt to take private property from hard-working people for no reason other than it would prefer something else in its place. New Jersey law does not allow them to do so.”

The “blight” claims often involve conditions like “dilapidation,” “obsolescence,” “overcrowding,” or “faulty arrangement or design.”

But in this case, there was no such evidence.

“[Perth Amboy] failed to provide substantial, credible evidence to support the designation under any applicable statutory criteria, instead relying on speculative assertions, generalized concerns, and incomplete or unreliable evidence,” the judge ruled.