We tend to react strongly to eminent domain abuses as they are taking one of the pillars of what makes the United States so great, property ownership, and attempting to destroy our reliance on it. An editorial in the Altanticville, a local Long Beach, New Jersey newspaper, illustrates how the process is being bastardized after the Supreme Court’s Kelo ruling.

The following is a scary and impassioned guest column from a person who is having his property being taken by the Long Beach government for a “Condo” development. The combination of a low appraisal, skirting the requirements of “fair and open” negotiations, and a legal system that the average person can not understand creates a terrifying scenario for the homeowner who only wants to keep their family home. 

Read the excerpt of the column from the Atlanticville, and follow it on to the full column, it puts the battle of eminent domain in terms we all can understand and appreciate.

On Thursday, Feb. 2, my family received the next step in the eminent domain taking from the city of Long Branch — a nice thick package of papers that to us only says, “We are stealing your land so get out now.”
For as long as I can remember during this ordeal, I have read in many different newspapers about condo offers in exchange for land, fair and open negotiations with the builder and the wonderful and fair treatment we have received from the city of Long Branch.
The only problem I have with all of this is that I don’t remember any of it happening.
My family has owned, for more than 50 years, two bungalow style homes with a very large adjacent lot on Ocean Terrace.
Last year, we received an appraisal from the city’s Hoboken-based appraiser. Our two ocean block houses and large adjacent lot were appraised at $451,000. When I received the appraisal I went through many emotions beginning with laughter over the ridiculously low amount of the appraisal, to total anger in thinking that the city of Long Branch could “steal” this oceanfront land without any just or realistic compensation. It should be noted that not a single piece of property or house used in the appraisal was an ocean block property.

Now read the rest on how a Victim of eminent domain abuse speaks out.

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