Takings

Ilya Somin | 8.2.2025 7:33 PM

In May, I wrote about how the town of Toms River, New Jersey, planned to use eminent domain to condemn the Christ Episcopal Church and build and park and pickleball courts on the spot. The plan may have been motivated by a desire to prevent the church from building a homeless shelter on part of its property. In my earlier post, I outlined multiple potential objections to the planned condemnation under the state and federal constitutions, including 1) if the condemned property is transferred to a private party, that may mean it is not being devoted to a "public use," as the Fifth Amendment and the New Jersey Constitution both require (NJ state courts applying their state constitution enforce this requirement far more rigorously than federal courts do under the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause),  and 2) there is likely to be a strong argument that this is a "pretextual taking," where the official rationale is just a pretext for a scheme to benefit a private party (here, local NIMBYs who want to block the homeless shelter).

After an initial outcry, the vote on the plan was postponed until July 30. More recently, Mayor Dan Rodrick postponed the vote indefinitely, likely because of growing public opposition. He now says the town will go through with the vote only if a poll of town residents he plans to conduct on the subject reveals majority support for it. At this time, I do not know when the poll will occur or what the wording will be.  The wording of survey questions on land-use policy often has a big effect on........

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