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January 1, 2006
Eminent Domain: Home for the holidays
New Jersey Eminent Domain Blog has an interesting, emotional post about eminent domain abuse in Long Branch, New Jersey.
The public will get to hear all the facts when Judge Lawson conducts hearings on Long Branch’s right to take the properties recently condemned for Beachfront North Phase 2. There are 36 homeowners left in Beachfront North. If the city is allowed to proceed with eminent domain, we will be reading a list of senior-citizen homeowners who have lost their property, not unlike the daily litany of young soldiers who gave their lives defending our freedom on foreign shores. How have we come to this: that government is permitted to take property from one private land owner for the benefit of another private landowner? This is not the “public purpose” that our Founding Fathers envisioned when they permitted in the Constitution private property to be taken for public use. The concept of public use has been distorted and bastardized through the expanded definition of blight to which our courts have acquiesced.
Posted by amy at January 1, 2006 11:19 AM