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Newark Property Owner Loses Date of Value Argument
On August 2, 2017, the Appellate Division affirmed several Law Division orders arising out of a long-running dispute between the County of Essex and the owners of property located in the City of Newark. The appellate court affirmed trial court orders; 1) setting the date of value, 2) denying reconsideration thereof, and 3) memorializing a... Read More
Property Owner’s Second Bite at the Apple Not So Tasty as the First
A New Jersey appellate court just affirmed the denial of property owner’s challenge to a condemnation premised on a failure of pre-complaint bona fide negotiations. Montclair v Cerino 2017 a0753-15. The Township of Montclair had previously commenced a condemnation action to acquire a property along Valley Road that was used by the property owner to store... Read More
Property Owners Protest Penn East Pipeline at Delaware RiverKeeper Meeting
Legions of property owners turned out in opposition to the proposed Penn East Natural Gas pipeline at the at the quarterly meeting of Delaware River Basin Commission. Reported here. The general comments were consist with those of Doug O’Malleym director of Environment New Jersey: “PennEast is trying to peddle a pipeline to the residents of... Read More
Challenge to Redevelopment Action Decades After Finding of Blight Denied
The Appellate Division recently analyzed an old blight designation in Ocean County in a January 18, 2017 opinion. You may have to read it more than once to understand the convoluted fact pattern. Or, you may want to skip ahead to the legal analysis because it is short and to the point. Two tracts... Read More
Interstate Gas Pipelines in NJ – Public Use or Private Benefit?
Photo credit. http://www.spectraenergy.com/Natural-Gas-Oil-101/ New Jersey is the most densely populated State in the Union. It may soon have the most underground gas transmission lines. The latest in a series of new pipelines is being proposed in New Jersey is by PennEast, a subsidiary of Spectra Energy. An interactive map of the proposed route can be... Read More
NJ Transit v. Franco – Property Owner Verdict Overturned on Appeal
On October 19, 2016, almost seven years after a condemnation action was commenced, the Appellate Division published an opinion reversing an $8,150,000 jury verdict in favor of the property owners from 2013. The pre-condemnation offer of compensation was $934,500. The trial judge also ordered that $1,967,865 be escrowed in the Superior Court Trust Fund to cover... Read More
CRDA Denied Authority to Take – Birnbaum Wins on Reconsideration
On August 5, 2016, Judge Mendez reversed himself issuing an Order holding that the Casino Reinvestment Development Corp.’s condemnation of the Birnbaum property was a “manifest abuse of the eminent domain power” and exceeded CRDA’s statutory authority. Thereby dismissing the case commenced over two years ago. Initially the Court denied the Birnbaum’s challenge to the... Read More
Morristown Booming with Redevelopment
This is kind of an off topic post … but generally fits within the purview of redevelopment. Having grown-up in Colonial Morristown with its historic Green; and National Historic Parks (Washington’s Headquarters and Jockey Hollow), and having returned for the practice of law, I am amazed at the transformation that has occurred over the past... Read More
Court of Claims Awards Leaseholder Awards $170M After Inverse Condemnation Trial
A quick hit – The United States Court of Federal Claims recently awarded two leaseholders over $170M for the taking of their leasehold interests at Dallas Love Field Airport. A full copy of the long opinion is here. The nascence of the claim goes all the way back to construction of the Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport... Read More
Adoption of Rehabilitation Plan in Woodbridge Not A Taking (D.N.J.)
From the United States District Court comes a new opinion from Judge Chesler, but there’s nothing new in the precedent cited denying a property’s owner’s claim of “inverse condemnation.” Simply stated, an inverse condemnation case is a procedure for a property owner to secure just compensation where government has taken private property for public use... Read More
