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50 Year Old Newark Blight Designation Invalidated
On August 16, 2019, the Honorable Thomas Vena, J.S.C. invalidated a 50-year-old blight designation of Plaintiff Benjamin Moore’s property in Newark, New Jersey. The full text of the opinion is a worthwhile read and can be found here. In one respect, it is a fountainhead decision because the Court invalidated a blight designation that had... Read More
Appellate Court Affirms Favorable Owner Verdict Where Owner Did Not Present Appraisal Expert
The Appellate Division recently affirmed a judgment awarding a property owner $4,500,000 where the only appraisal expert testimony was the condemning agency’s expert, who opined that the property in question was only worth $2,830,000. The case was captioned Township of Manalapan v. Gentile and was commenced in August of 2010 to acquire a 45 acre... Read More
PennEast Pipeline Under Appeal to Federal Circuit Court of Appeal
On August 10, 2018, FERC issued an Order Denying Requests for Rehearing on its grant of a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to PennEast Pipeline, LLC.2018-8-10 FERC Order Denying Rehearing. On August 13, 2018, New Jersey Conservation Foundation and Delaware Riverkeeper appealed. FERC issued its Certificate for the PennEast Pipeline in January of this... Read More
Pro Se Redevelopment Challenges Unsuccessful in Union City
Two recent Appellate Division cases rejected the arguments of a pro se party challenging Union City’s efforts to redevelop “blighted areas”. Both cases are captioned Larry Price v. Union City. The first opinion issued on December 21, 2017 and the second February 13, 2018. Links to the full text are below. Price v Union City... Read More
Redevelopment Designation Affirmed on Appeal
A two-judge panel of the Appellate Division recently affirmed a decision of the Law Division (Ocean County) upholding a condemnation redevelopment designation in Tradewinds Marina, Inc. v. Borough of South Toms River (A-273-16T2) (unpublished opinion here). In short, while the sole objecting property owner complained of some clear irregularities in the proceedings, the owner did... Read More
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
