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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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Suppose a state legislator were nutty enough to sponsor a bill that says: “You can keep your home or business until local government finds a better owner for your property.” That lawmaker would be laughed out of office, if not run out of town on a proverbial rail. But this is what passes for the law of the land today in New Jersey. Across this state, local officials are moving at a frenzied pace to declare thousands of homes, local shops and businesses and even entire cities as “redevelopment areas.” This is the statutory euphemism for “blighted areas” and the first step in obtaining the awesome power of “eminent domain” – Latin for “property of the sovereign,” or in these days, Hizzoner the Mayor. Last week the eminent domain frenzy was on public display at a packed conference sponsored by New Jersey Future, a non profit group that energetically promotes redevelopment and is partially funded by developers, law firms and consultants who are heavily invested in redevelopment projects. In opening remarks, NJF executive director George Hawkins quoted Martin Luther King, Jr’s visionary last speech in Memphis: “I’ve been to the mountain top and seen the promised land below” – although he left off the next part: “but I may not get there with you.” Mr. Hawkins may not have been to a mountain top recently, but he foresees a “promised land” of vibrant cities reborn across New Jersey through the medium of redevelopment using eminent domain as a “last resort,” whatever that means. He foresees people who “walk or ride bikes” to and from jobs and train stations, freed from our cars and gasoline that gobble up open space, pollute the air and addict us to foreign oil and right-wing oligarchs. But, we might inquire, the promised land for whom? Who will get there and who will be left behind – if not pushed aside? What Mr. Hawkins did not address is what is happening now under the aegis of redevelopment with eminent domain as the favored weapon: Far from yielding a “promised land,” it’s a living nightmare for thousands of people who are being forced out of homes and businesses by local officials who have granted monopolies to the chosen few redevelopers to control local land and property. These people won’t be around when this “promised land” arrives, if ever it is. They live in older apartments, modest bungalows, small homes, or even on farms that stand in the way of promises made by redevelopers to replace them with wealthy new residents who will, by the way, be childless – either Yuppies or Grumpies – to hold down school taxes. The promised land of redevelopment today threatens to uproot the entire population of Camden. That’s right: The city could be depopulated in a modern revival of that Vietnam War mantra: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Among the first to go are the 2,500 residents of the Cramer Hill area, a predominantly black and Hispanic community. Where will they live when their assumed betters arrive? Not to nearby Lindenwold, a frequent escape valve for ex-Camdenites, which has redevelopment plans of its own of going more upscale. What about the promised land in Long Branch, a once proud shore town where Presidents used to summer? The mayor and city council have voted to “seize properties that owners have been unwilling to sell to developers” in a two-block area near the beachfront, according to The Newark Star-Ledger. Slated for condemnation are businesses that have hung on through the lean years and will miss the benefits of revival. Good bye to the Heads Up barbershop; nice knowing you Gobal Panday’s liquor store; sayonara to Garcia’s Music Store, although its landlord, Kevin Brown, promises to fight City Hall. (Disclosure: Mr. Brown and Mr. Panday are members of the New Jersey Coalition Against Eminent Domain Abuse, formed on February 18 in a citizens’ forum at Princeton, hosted by the Princeton Justice Project, a student advocacy group. I am faculty advisor to the student group and was named coordinator of the coalition.) Where is the promised land for the Halpers, who have been locked in an eight-year struggle with Piscataway and Middlesex County over the future of their farm, the last working farm in the township? An appellate court last week entered an 11th-hour 90-day stay to prevent the planned eviction of the Halpers and all their farm animals. Pending before the court will be challenges that include allegations of a veritable spiderweb of conflicts of interest involving politically connected lawyers who are charged with switching sides with the dexterity of a Barysnikov. And where is the promised land for Johnnie Stevens and his wife, both suffering from cancer? He is an 85-year old African-American World War II veteran who was awarded the Bronze Star for service with the famed 761st Tank Battalion in Europe. The mayor of Carteret wants to replace the Stevens duplex with luxury condos. According to Mr. Stevens’ attorney, he “just wants to spend the rest of whatever time he has left in his backyard taking care of his garden” and Mrs. Stevens. And on it goes, across the state, with each eminent domain outrage committed in the name of redevelopment. If we are going to have a new promised land across New Jersey, as Mr. Hawkins predicts, the law must be changed so that people no longer own their property at the sufferance of the sovereign, those local mayors with visions of promised lands blinding them to the reality of the injustice done to the unlucky populace caught in the path of presumed progress. Bill Potter Bill Potter, an attorney in Princeton, is also a lecturer in the Princeton University Department of Politics and an adjunct professor of environmental law at Rutgers Law School. NEW JERSEY COALITION AGAINST EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE (NJCAEDA)  |
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