Hopefully we will see more suits of this kind -- and citizen success -- in this post-Kelo world. I mean if the government is going to say that your land is “only” worth $14,000 when it takes it but then turns around and sells it for over four times as much, they clearly were in error on the market value of the property.

In May 2004, the city's Redevelopment Agency, a state-approved board, was granted a court order to employ eminent domain - the government's right to seize property - for Shennett's lot.

Last week, Shennett said he learned for the first time in January that his property had been taken. The city sent him letters in 2004, but Shennett says he never got them.

During a hearing on the matter in Superior Court last week, a judge ruled that Shennett was never properly informed and that the commissioners who approved the $14,730 compensation price for the property must meet again and allow Shennett to get his own appraisal.

The Redevelopment Agency, meanwhile, sold the property to Wayne Asset Management of Kinnelon for $60,000 in December.

Despite the discrepancy in price, which has been a source of contention, the city has the right to pay Shennett less for the property than what it was sold for, said William Ward, a Florham Park attorney with the firm Carlin and Ward, which specializes in eminent domain cases.

The city claims that the difference is due to a zoning change that went through in order to enable the development, and that the law therefore allows it to pay Mr. Shennett the value at the time they seized it from him – prior to its own actions that allowed itself to see a 300% increase in value. In other words, the city artificially kept the value down through zoning. Once it found a buyer for the land, it acted to jack the price up to what the new buyer was willing to pay – and as the owner, it received the benefit of the new market value.

Oh, and did I neglect to include a bit about the developer.

In the meantime, Wayne Asset is building a new house on Shennett's property.

Wayne Asset is run by Wayne Alston, a former city councilman who in 1992 was charged by federal authorities with taking $6,000 in bribes from a city landlord and paying himself $15,000 in bonuses from state funds.

But a mistrial allowed Alston to plead guilty to a lesser charge, and he was sentenced to five months in prison and a year of supervised release

Dirty politician, getting favirs from (and giving them to?) his buddies who are still on the council.

Shame!

Posted by: Greg at 11:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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