Are These Properties 'Blight'?

The planning board recommended Tuesday that several properties along Route 130 be deemed blighted, as part of the township’s continuing effort to redevelop the corridor.

The board had already recommended (to township committee) a large swath of 130—between Wynwood Drive and the Shoppes at Cinnaminson—as an area in need of redevelopment. But after a recent court decision set new parameters for defining blight, committee sought the board’s opinion again on determining whether those same areas met the new criteria.

Township planner Barbara Fegley said the court case—which found that an area must be deemed blighted in order for a governing body to invoke eminent domain—defines blight as “deterioration or stagnation that negatively affects the surrounding area.”

Even with the definition, a few board members expressed confusion regarding the exact meaning of blight.

“I guess I’m real uncomfortable with how fuzzy this blight standard has become,” said board member Mariette O’Malley.

Solicitor Douglas Heinold acknowledged the case law “isn’t that well-developed” to provide explicit guidelines for a finding of blight, but advised the board to “look beyond outward appearance.”

“The question of deterioration or stagnation is more than, ‘How does it look?’” he said. “(It’s) also the operation and the negative impacts it may have on surrounding properties.”

Based on those guidelines, the board recommended the following areas be deemed blighted: Garden State Inn, the Azalea farm property, the former Barone’s property, and several small lots between the Shoppes at Cinnaminson and Highland Avenue, including the Divorce Center, Careers First and two other properties.

Some board members had doubts about deeming Garden State Inn as blight, including Mayor Ben Young, who pointed out the property had its issues—frequent visits from police, complaints from neighbors—but said that didn’t seem to rise to the criteria set forth by the case law. He also noted the hotel was built before the homes behind it.

The board voted unanimously to recommend the other properties as blighted, but only recommended Garden State Inn by a narrow 4-3 margin. Young and Committeewoman Kathy Fitzpatrick, who also sits on the planning board, abstained on all votes since the blight determination is ultimately a committee decision.

Fegley also recommended several other areas as blighted properties, including Leslie’s Pool Supplies, Paula’s Family Restaurant and the Acme shopping center (including Speed Raceway and Hibachi Grill). She explained Leslie’s and Paula’s had some of the same issues—namely poor lot conditions and code enforcement issues—and that due to Acme’s vacancy, the entire shopping center could be considered blight.

Several board members disagreed however, with Young coming to the shopping center’s defense.

“A building that’s been vacant for two years (Acme closed in February  2011) … you cannot consider that would create blight,” he said. 

As for the other businesses Fegley suggested, the mayor added, “I don’t know that you can take an occupied building, that’s been occupied for years … generating revenue—I struggle with blight.”

Ultimately, the board voted 6-1 in favor of recommending those properties for redevelopment but not blight.

While a determination of blight—if township committee accepts the planning board's recommendations—would leave eminent domain on the table as a tool the township could use to acquire a property for redevelopment, it's still a very complicated process, Heinold said.

"Eminent domain is always a serious undertaking by any government entity, for any purpose," he explained. "There's costs associated with it. The governing body needs to pay fair market value ... It's usually not the first and most desired option."

Moreover, township officials have insisted on more than one occasion they have no plans to use eminent domain—though Young previously commented it's “one of the tools in the toolbox.”

The board's blight findings will now go back before township committee.

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