The abuse of minent domain is an issue that goes straight to people's hearts. And, more and more, it pits wealthy commercial developers against people who have worked hard to maintain their homes and neighborhoods.
Are we waiting for the Republicans to make this issue their own?
The victims of eminent domain abuse need a champion. Why can't the Democrats take this on?
http://www.ij.org/private_property/longbranch/8_30_06pr.htmlArlington, Va.—May courts summarily permit local governments to hand over your home to someone else for private development without even allowing you to first present evidence in your home’s defense?
That is exactly what a New Jersey judge did early this year, and that is the decision homeowners from Long Branch, N.J., who are fighting eminent domain abuse, will appeal today with the help of the Institute for Justice, the nation’s leading opponents of eminent domain for private gain. The Institute for Justice argued last year’s U.S. Supreme Court case, Kelo v. City of New London and in July won a unanimous Ohio Supreme Court ruling striking down eminent domain abuse in that state. In the 1990s, the organization successfully defended the home of Atlantic City, N.J., homeowner Vera Coking when Donald Trump had convinced a State agency to take her land for his private use.
Like thousands of ordinary neighborhoods across the nation, Long Branch’s MTOTSA neighborhood (an acronym for the streets Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace and Seaview Avenue) is being condemned because a tax-hungry City government arbitrarily labeled the perfectly fine homes “blighted” to justify transferring them to powerful private developers. The City seeks to kick out longtime residents—many of whom are families with small children and retirees in their eighties and nineties—to make way for wealthier people. If the condemnations are allowed, private developers will make windfall profits building oceanfront condos that will sell for between $500,000 and over one million dollars.
Earlier this summer, the Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold ruled that the City of Long Branch could invoke a bogus “blight” designation as an excuse for using its power of eminent domain to seize the neighborhood for “redevelopment.” This outrageous decision, which breaks sharply from traditional American notions of property ownership, has given Long Branch the green light to replace modest homes with fancier ones, and working-class families and retirees with rich and trendy professionals.
SNIP
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