Long Branch Redevelopment Dealt Another Blow

 A New Jersey appellate court dealt another setback last week to the Oceanfront Broadway redevelopment project in Long Branch.  Reversing the decision of the trial court, an appellate panel concluded that the City’s designation of the study area properties as in need of redevelopment in 1996 did not satisfy the heightened standard of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Gallenthin Realty Development, Inc. v. Borough of Paulsboro. Because the record did  contain “substantial evidence” to support the City’s findings under the subsections of the Local Redevelopment and Housing Law upon which it relied, the panel reversed the judgment allowing the condemnation of those properties to proceed.

The appellants in this recent decision are owners and tenants of three commercial properties in the Broadway Corridor, a section of the City of Long Branch that the City included in its Oceanfront Broadway Redevelopment Project in 1996.  The recent decision gives the City another opportunity to prove that its reasons for taking the land and buildings are valid under tougher standards set by Gallenthin and other recent court cases.

Accounts of the recent decision have been published by the Star-Ledger,  the Asbury Park Press, the Atlantic City Press, and was covered by David Porter of the Associated Press.