Save North Arlington from Eminent Domain

The Borough meeting scheduled for 8:00 pm february 23rd has been cancelled.


First of all I want to say. That what is happening to my home can happen anywhere in the borough of North Arlington. Not just Ridge Road, or Porete Avenue.

With that in mind. Imagine if you will. You wake up on Saturday morning. You get your kids ready for the day. You take one of your kids to the middle school for her weekly traveling team practice. You get to the middle school and one of the parents at the school walks up to you with a local newspaper and say’s, ‘Hey I see you’re moving’. On the front page of one of the local papers is a project called the Renaissance and it’s where your house is.

That’s how my family was introduced to Eminent Domain. That’s how my neighbor Robert Palumbo’s Hair Saloon decided to tell us about his condo project. Nobody from the borough notified us. Nobody told us that this was going on. Just another parent reading an article, was sharing there concern. That’s the way that my family found out how some greedy developer and a hair dresser has plans for our home.

Art Roberts Studio has been a staple of North Arlington since 1958. Mr. Miller purchased his home and opened this business to make a better life for his family. Mr. Miller is typical of all homeowners, businessman and taxpayers. Buy your house, go to work, raise your family. I think they call that the American dream.

Mr Miller is my father-in-law. My family has lived in the second floor apartment at 610 Ridge Road for over 17 years. My wife was born here and our children were born and raised in North Arlington.

My family strongly disagrees with the power of government to take private property and hand it over to only developers. With the use of eminent domain a developer doesn’t have to negotiate. He just has to go to the City and say, listen; we have a better plan than what these property owners have. We can generate more property taxes. We want the property.

From what I understand, eminent domain is defined as taking a private property for public use. Public use should only be used for reservoirs, highways, police departments, schools.

That’s what our forefathers intended it to be for, not for luxury hotels, condos, industrial parks that only benefit one person, and that is the developers and their friends.

“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.” - Justice O’Connor



The Ridge Road re-development plan places homeowners and business at risk. We are all exposed to Eminent Domain under this plan. Several Council members have stated publicly there stance on Eminent Domain. Councilman Massa has stated several times how he is against Eminent Domain for private development. Councilman Tanelli is looking to have this very issue addressed on the November election in the form of a referendum.

But this borough is not alone.

Several other boroughs have already passed legislation to protect property owners. Paramus and Bogota to name a few. In Bogota, the response to the threat of Eminent Domain was clear.
There, a referendum asked the mayor and council to pass an ordinance limiting the use of eminent domain to condemn private property to public purposes only, such as to build a school, build a highway. The ballot passed.

This is a very clear issue. Protect our property, our homes and our business’s. This is not New London, Conneticut, it’s North Arlington. This Planning Board and Council has the power to protect North Arlington residents. We need the borough to protect us from greedy people and developers who are looking to prey on people in the borough.

If not, you could be next.