Looks like there are some judges who got it right, despite the appaling Kelo ruling:
That's Not Blight. It's New Jersey.The usual M.O. for city fathers eyeing some juicy piece of property is to declare the homes of people living there "blighted." That's just what happened to Lori and her neighbors. She says that when Long Branch first started to talk about a redevelopment plan in the mid-1990s, no one even suspected their homes were being targeted for teardown. Then they found that their neighborhood was officially declared blighted.
The good news is that while New Jersey's politicos are apparently content to leave their citizens vulnerable to these kinds of seizures, the courts have been more, well, judicious. In a welcome ruling last year, the New Jersey Supreme Court in Gallenthin Realty Development Inc. v. Borough of Paulsboro said that the government could not declare a property blighted just because someone else might put it to higher economic use. Last week the appellate court followed up by sending the Long Branch case back to the lower court. The three judges made clear they were skeptical of the blight designation -- and put the burden on the city to prove it.
(Hat Tip Point of Law)
Posted by Vox at August 16, 2008 11:36 PM | politics