SANDY’S
DEVASTATION
Much of that growth has been
aided by lenient land-use policies
that have encouraged development
in coastal areas known to be at
monumental risk for damage, experts and critics argue. Real estate
interests have historically been a
powerful lobby in the state, ranking among the top donors to Christie and former Gov. Jon Corzine.
Representatives from the state’s
real estate and development trade
groups declined to comment on
their political activities, saying they
were focusing on recovery efforts.
In towns such as Long Branch,
N.J., local officials have turned
around ailing downtowns and waterfronts by granting tax abatements for developers to relocate
there. But longtime residents
criticized an aggressive approach
by the town and developers to
buy older, single-family homes to
promote condo and retail development near the ocean.
Beginning in the late 1990s, the
city partnered with a development
company on two residential and retail projects in Long Branch, known
as Pier Village and Beachfront
North. The plan involved a massive
redevelopment of the city’s waterfront, which had burned down in
the 1980s and never rebounded.
HUFFINGTON
12.02.12
Eager for new development and
tax benefits, the city began using a claim of eminent domain for
homeowners and businesses that
held out. Many of the property
owners in the footprint of the first
project, Pier Village, sold to the
developer, The Applied Companies
of Hoboken, in the early 2000s.
Watching the takeover unfold,
property owners in the path of
the next development refused to
sell. The city attempted to use
eminent domain, arguing the area
was blighted, filing condemnation
papers beginning in 2005. As the
battle went on, a vice president
for the development company said
there were no plans to pull back
on the project.
“We believe it is a good project
for the city, and we intend to complete it,” Applied’s vice president,
Gregory S. Russo, told the Asbury
Park Press in 2006.
The city administrator, Howard
Woolley Jr. told the Newark StarLedger that the decision was “for
the greater good of the city.”
The homeowners eventually prevailed in a state appeals court case
in 2008, and the city settled the
case. But development has cropped
up all around the waterfront.
“The developers are getting
their way here,” Lori Ann Vendetti, a homeowner who was one
of the key figures in the fight, told