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Network

New
Jersey City Council Tries to Use Eminent Domain on Property Owners, Gets Swept
Out of Office

Sometimes you
can beat City Hall.

Michael
Monaghan has wanted to develop his property on Main Street in Hackensack, New
Jersey, just a few miles away from Manhattan.  Yet the city twice denied
two applications for banks to build on his land.

Instead,
Hackensack’s Planning Board designated Michael’s and another owner’s land as an
“area in need of redevelopment,” authorizing the use of eminent domain to
condemn and seize the properties.  “I've
stood up and tried to protect my property for the last eight
years,” he said in an
interview with a local paper.

Adding
insult to injury, this designation was completely unwarranted.  According
to Michael’s attorney, Peter Dickson, the board “did not make the Constitutional
finding of blighted, and did not have any evidence that would support such a
finding.”

Last
month, the Appellate
Division of the state Superior Court agreed, ruling
the Planning Board didn’t properly prove that those properties were blighted and
“in need of redevelopment.”   The city council intended to appeal the
appellate court’s decision.

But
fortunately for property owners, Hackensack’s
entire city council was booted out of
office.  The grassroots group Citizens for Change won every single seat on
the city council, despite being outraised 2:1.  Their slate of candidates
successfully ran on a platform against costly litigation, nepotism, and
corruption.  (For example, Hackensack’s police chief was recently
convicted
for official misconduct and insurance fraud.)
Citizens for Change also sharply criticized Hackensack’s redevelopment projects,
calling them “sweetheart
deals and special privileges for politically connected property owners and
developers.”

Abusing
eminent domain is not only reprehensible, but politically unpopular.
Elected officials should heed Hackensack, lest they face a public backlash and
lose their seats.

--Nick
Sibilla

Nick Sibilla works at IJ as a Maffucci
Fellow.

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to HAN main page

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