Private homes put to a public purpose
Your Turn
Michael D. Schottland

Guest Column

Most Americans believed their home was their castle. By the slimmest of majorities, our U.S. Supreme Court determined that was not the case. A fortnight ago, Kelo v. New London struck a blow at this long-held belief regarding the sanctity of one’s home. The court ruled local governmental units can use the power of eminent domain acting in concert with private land developers to take private residences for upgrading and development.

Even though the end result of this process was to establish a profitable enterprise for the land developer, this action was considered a public purpose, thus overriding one of America’s most strongly held beliefs in the primacy of the private home.

We in New Jersey are not strangers to this type of governmental/developer partnership. In 1947, our learned leaders determined if an area was considered “blighted,” a local government could exercise the power of eminent domain as well as grant major tax concessions to attract wealthy land developers. Following the adoption of that constitutional provision, the legislature — acting in concert with the lobbyists of the land-developing industry — adopted a vague piece of legislation. Under the terms of this legislation, with the assistance of a “planning expert,” practically any circumstance could be found to be an area in need of redevelopment, thus triggering the power of the local government.

New Jersey is the most densely populated state and with the active authority granted under the legislation, it is achieving one of the highest ratios of asphalt coverage to acreage in the nation. The Municipal Land Use Law has been adopted in such a fashion so the general public has virtually no effective way to prevent a well-positioned land developer from getting what it or he wants for a specific locale. The obvious invitation for corruption between land developers and local governmental personages is rather stark and — based on the latest publicity — New Jersey is quickly gaining a reputation as the corruption capitol of America.

I have long held the belief that our nation is not quite what we think it is. We talk the talk, but the reality is quite a bit different. The fact that five justices in Washington can override the long-held personal beliefs of millions of homeowners is an example of how tenuous our rights really are. There is a certain irony in the way the court lined up on this issue. The new majority consists of the four members of the court who were the minority voting in favor of the vote recount in Florida, plus one swing vote coming from the majority in that case. The reader will recall one single justice was responsible for the election of George W. Bush for president.

Hence, the four who supported democratic ideals regarding voting formed the bedrock of the majority who supported governmental power over private property. These two cases, i.e., the Florida election fiasco and now the Connecticut eminent domain atrocity, reveal how tenuous our beliefs in freedom really are. In both cases our high court has exposed itself as being out of touch with democratic ideals associated with the ballot box and our long-held belief in the sanctity of our private property.

On each occasion, a single justice was able to dash these fundamental values.

We in Monmouth County have a very specific local example of the work of the new concept of eminent domain. Long Branch has a new “redevelopment zone.” Hundreds of homeowners — many of whom had been residents for decades — were subjected to eminent domain and sent on their way.

The litmus test for this grand experiment would be if we could total the cost of the land seizure in the redevelopment zone. Then total the sales price for the numerous condos and other projects erected in the zone and subtract the actual cost of construction. I suspect the number we would obtain evidencing the private profit would be staggering.

What should emerge is a bright light on the new public purpose doctrine. A corporate opportunity for large profit has been created for wealthy developers who have connections with the elite in government. These barons of wealth are now favored over their poorer predecessors.

Those five justices who voted in this fashion displayed a twisted myopia unworthy of what we thought was a great tradition. Perhaps our perception of America is as distorted as that of our Supreme Court.

Michael D. Schottland is a resident of Monmouth Beach