Bill Ward, one of the attorneys representing the property owners, has a post summarizing new developments in Anzalone v. City of Long Branch, an important New Jersey "blight" condemnation case that I discussed in this August post. The city (which lost the case in a lower appellate court) is petitioning for review by the New Jersey Supreme Court, and counsel for the property owners have filed a cross-petition urging the Court to reaffirm the lower court's decision.

If the state supreme court takes the case, it might end up being one of the most important blight condemnation decisions of this decade. New Jersey, like New York, has made extensive use of "blight" designations to condemn a variety of properties that are far from actually being blighted in the lay sense of that term. As I have emphasized in many of my articles (e.g. - here), this practice is also common in many other states.