Public Advocate Seeks To Enter Harrison Eminent Domain Case

TRENTON, NJ – Public Advocate Ronald K. Chen today asked a state appeals court to allow him to participate in a case in which three Harrison business owners are defending their property from the town’s attempt to take it by eminent domain and to transfer it to private redevelopers.

The Department of the Public Advocate filed a motion in the Appellate Division of Superior Court seeking permission to participate in the case as an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court.”

“The appeal presents important questions about the fairness of the process by which property is taken under New Jersey’s redevelopment law,” Chen said.  “Under current law, a municipality must notify property owners that they are within a redevelopment area.  The law does not require property owners to be told their home or business could be taken for purposes of private redevelopment.”

“It is not acceptable that currently New Jerseyans can lose their property without adequate notice and without a hearing,” Chen said. “We are working with the Legislature to reform the law’s notice and hearing requirements. We believe this case demonstrates why the current law fails to satisfy the due process requirements of the New Jersey Constitution.”

The business owners allege that they did not receive clear notice that the town’s redevelopment efforts could lead to the condemnation of their property and that is why they didn’t challenge the redevelopment designation within the 45-day limit set by law.

When they tried to object years later, in defending their property from condemnation by the town, the trial court in Hudson County ruled that they were out of time.

In addition, the business owners claim that they were denied an opportunity to participate in the redevelopment plan and that the town hasn’t offered them fair compensation for their property or adequate assistance in relocating their businesses.  The trial court rejected these claims as well and the owners appealed.

If granted, the current motion to appear in the Harrison case would mark the fourth time in the past year that the public advocate entered ongoing litigation concerning the use of eminent domain for private redevelopment.

The Harrison case involves an approximately 250-acre waterfront redevelopment project.  Harrison, which lies just northeast of Newark across the Passaic River, has begun to demolish existing buildings and to transfer the properties to private redevelopers who plan to construct thousands of square feet of retail space, hundreds of upscale residential units, a parking garage and a soccer stadium.

The properties involved in the appeals are a used-car dealership, a tire repair shop and parking and warehousing facilities.

The Town Council designated the industrial area as “in need of redevelopment” in 1997.  Since then, the town created the Harrison Redevelopment Agency, chose redevelopers, and refined its redevelopment plan in a 2003 document that said the planned development has “the potential to be a project of world class scale.”

The redevelopment area involves nearly a third of the town’s 1.2-square-mile area and is located within a mile of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Riverfront Stadium and the downtown core of Newark.

Public Advocate Chen said New Jersey’s redevelopment law fails to ensure plain-language notice to all affected parties so they are advised that a redevelopment designation can lead to condemnation of their property.  He said the current law also falls short in guaranteeing sufficient compensation or relocation assistance.

“The Public Advocate is seeking to appear in the Harrison case to assist the appeals court in determining whether the proposed condemnations – and the process that led to them – comport with the state constitution’s guarantees of procedural fairness and just compensation,” Chen said.

The practice of using eminent domain for private redevelopment has been the subject of more than 18 months of intense scrutiny by the Department of the Public Advocate.  Property owners who have had their homes or land seized and turned over to private redevelopers have complained about abuse and, in some cases, have sued.

“While the state courts always must stand as the final bulwark against injustice, we will continue to support and advocate for legislative reform, which is needed to ensure that property owners and tenants are treated fairly.”

“Until lawmakers enact comprehensive eminent domain reform, we will continue to see cases like those in Harrison, and we will carefully assess the relevant facts to determine whether our involvement might assist the court to decide important, open legal questions,” he added.

In the past 18 months, the Public Advocate has issued two reports on reforming the use of eminent domain for private redevelopment and participated as amicus curiae in three matters in the courts.  In the two cases that have been decided, the courts agreed with the Public Advocate’s positions.  The lead case, involving Paulsboro and decided in June by the New Jersey Supreme Court, narrowed the overly broad definition of blight in the State’s redevelopment law and resulted in several subsequent rulings in which courts rejected local efforts to take property that was not blighted so it could be privately redeveloped.

Read the Notice of Motion to Appear as amicus curiae and Certification of Ronald K. Chen in Support of Motion