Honey Meerzon owns a rental property in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. Next door, Luis Romero owns a tire shop that has been in business for decades. The neighbors, both children of immigrants who fled oppressive regimes, have worked hard to achieve their current status.
They want nothing more than financial independence and a legacy for their children — a real shot at the American Dream. However, they are at risk of losing their properties through eminent domain.
They are not the only ones who would suffer. Four families, some with small children, live in Meerzon’s units. They would lose their homes, and Romero’s employees would lose their jobs.
If the bulldozers come, it would be just the latest instance of a local government manipulating state law to take private property for economic development. New Jersey allows municipalities to use eminent domain to clear out “blight.” Once a property receives this label, the government can take it from one owner and give it to another for commercial purposes.
The idea is simple: Avoid abandoned or unsafe properties falling into disrepair. Yet, New Jersey law does not allow what is happening in Perth Amboy. Relying on little more than photos of a few pieces of litter and a stray cat, the City Council voted 4-1 in April 2025 to designate Meerzon’s and Romero’s properties as blighted, clearing the way for eminent domain.
The problem is that both properties are well-maintained. The city does not care. It envisions something better on the land, so it is using blight as a pretext to achieve its goals.
Similar situations have occurred in Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Tennessee and elsewhere. Many states have laws that empower local governments to acquire blighted land using eminent domain. And like Perth Amboy, many cities call things blighted when they are not — not to remove anything unsafe, but to remove anything that stands in the way of development.
Once public planners make up their minds, any property can appear to be a blight. The motive in Perth Amboy is a plot of undeveloped land behind Meerzon’s and Romero’s properties. In 2023, the city reached an agreement with a developer to use the space for “Gateway,” a project that would include a warehouse, park and mixed-use development.
Meerzon’s rental property and Romero’s tire shop were not included in the original Gateway plans. Now, though, the city wants that land. So, it commissioned a study in 2024 to determine whether the properties met the legal definition of blight, and that study says all the right things. It claims that the conditions on Meerzon’s and Romero’s properties are detrimental to the safety, health, morals and welfare of the community — phrases lifted right out of the legal definition of blight.
Yet, a closer examination of the study reveals it is nothing more than magic words. And words alone cannot justify governments taking private property.
For example, the study states that the litter on Romero’s property is actually on the lot behind his, which was not included in the blighted area. Regardless, the study emphasizes conditions that are easily removable, such as litter and feral cats, or inherently transitory, like a parked car in front.
The study does not allege the properties are dilapidated, unsafe or unhealthy. The study also relies on the number of police reports at both addresses. These reports are traffic stops, unrelated to the condition of either property. Penalizing law-abiding property owners for nearby traffic enforcement cannot be what New Jersey lawmakers intended when they sought to clean up blight.
Meerzon and Romero have tried to work with the city, asking it what they need to do so they can stay. Their questions have fallen on deaf ears, and their pleas to the City Council have gone unanswered. They feel as though they are being erased.
Rather than accept the abuse, they sued Perth Amboy on June 11, 2025, to get the blight designation lifted. My public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represents them. Blight designations should be reserved for unsafe, dilapidated properties, not a backyard where someone saw a stray cat.
