Glassboro Residents Protest Eminent Domain Use
By MEG HUELSMAN
Courier-Post Staff
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071128/NEWS01/711280375/1006/NEWS01
GLASSBORO
About 25 people picketed outside borough hall Tuesday night to protest the borough’s use of eminent domain to take a 77-year-old man’s High Street home to make way for a massive redevelopment project.
Suleiman Arifi, who said he is an ethnic Albanian and a former Yugoslav refugee, has lived in his two-story brick home on High Street for 18 years.
Holding a picket sign on his shoulder at the corner of Main and High streets Tuesday night, Arifi said the borough effectively shattered his version of the American Dream when they took his house earlier this year through eminent domain to make way for a large redevelopment project intended to revitalize Glassboro’s failing downtown.
“America has given me every opportunity, I went to college, I raised my family,” he said, wearing a small red cap to cover his head from the cold, his arms wrapped protectively around his picket sign. “I love this country, I love Glassboro, and they take my home.”
The borough is bonding about $8 million to acquire about 85 properties that are in the path of the proposed Rowan Boulevard, which will extend from Route 322 to Poplar Street.
Of the estimated 40 residential properties the borough has acquired, so far, Arifi’s is the first taken through eminent domain, Council President Anthony Fiola said.
“It is the governing body’s primary goal to move the redevelopment project forward,” Fiola said at the meeting. “It would be irresponsible as elected officials to say we would never use eminent domain.”
Destined for High Street, redevelopment solicitor Jim Maley said, are professional buildings and offices.
The borough established most of the downtown area as a redevelopment zone in 2000, redevelopment solicitor Jim Maley said. So far, the borough has obtained about 85 properties — both residential and commercial — to make way for Rowan Boulevard.
“This is the first time that we have had to use eminent domain,” for a residential property, Maley said Tuesday. “Eminent domain is an absolute last resort, and the borough has been working to assist people so that it doesn’t have to use eminent domain. I think we’ve been pretty successful.”
The borough acquired Arifi’s property several months ago, redevelopment solicitor Jim Maley said, following several attempts to settle out of court. A court hearing will be held in January to determine if the borough is allowed to take Arifi’s home.
If the judge rules in favor of the borough, three commissioners will be appointed to establish a fair price for the house, Maley said.
Eminent domain was used for two commercial properties, an abandoned Route 322 warehouse and the Academy Street School.
Council approved a resolution Tuesday night to acquire an $8 million