Here’s one we’ve been meaning to post for a while. In Borough of Seaside Park v. Shree Jyoti, LLC, No. 089599 (N.J. Aug. 10, 2026), the New Jersey Supreme Court held that a municipality is not required to identify the specific public use in an ordinance authorizing the taking of private property. It’s enough that there is a public use. It’s up to you, property owner and the public, to figure it out.

The Borough wanted to acquire a hotel, and adopted an ordinance authorizing the taking which declared it was for a “public use and purpose” that would promote the health, safety, and welfare of the community. (Well duh, every taking must fit that description, no?)

So the owner asked for specifics. But the Borough didn’t respond (at least directly), instead referring generally to a “public project.” (Again, duh.)

Only after litigation commenced and the trial court dismissed the Borough’s initial condemnation complaint did the Borough finally reveal the intended use: a public parking lot with electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Why it didn’t just say so in the ordinance or in response to the owner’s query isn’t answered.

The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed. This is a question of what New Jersey statutes require to be disclosed, so the court began with the statutory language in the Eminent Domain Act and the Local Lands and Buildings Law. Neither statute requires that an ordinance authorizing condemnation specify the particular public use for which the property is being taken. The statutes only require that municipalities condemn property “by ordinance,” but do not prescribe what the ordinance must say about intended uses.

As the Court saw it, that silence was dispositive:

Neither [the Eminent Domain Act nor the Local Lands and Buildings Law] establishes any requirement that the condemning municipality specify the intended public use for the property it is taking in the ordinance authorizing acquisition of the property.

Slip op. at 16-17.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the opinion is where the court noted that although the Borough complied with the bare minimum of the statute, it should have done more. The court emphasized that municipalities should identify the public use as early as possible, even though no statute requires it. The majority waxed poetic about how early disclosure of the public use and purpose promotes transparency, meaningful participation by property owners, conservation of public resources, and public confidence in government. After all, how can an owner check or challenge a public use if the condemnor won’t say what it is?

The court stressed that the public use must eventually be identified so a court can evaluate its constitutional validity, even though it concluded that New Jersey law does not require identification in the ordinance itself. Just whenever you get around to it, government?

Interesting, especially in light of the same court’s recent pronouncement that in eminent domain, government has an obligation to “turn square corners” and deal forthrightly with property owners on the target end of a condemnation. The majority repeatedly invoked that doctrine and reminded municipalities that they should identify public uses as early as practicable. Yet it concluded that the Borough didn’t violate any statutory, constitutional, or common-law requirement because the public use was eventually disclosed in an amended complaint, giving the owner time to challenge it.

One Justice saw the case through a more realistic lens. Although agreeing that neither statute expressly requires disclosure in the ordinance, the dissent would have concluded that the Borough’s conduct violated the “square corners” doctrine. It admittedly knew by at least March 2022 that it intended to use the property for a parking lot and electric vehicle charging infrastructure, yet when the owner specifically asked a month later what the public purpose was, the Borough refused to say. (After all, why should it?) The dissent emphasized that the Borough conceded during oral argument that in order to turn square corners it should identify the public purpose when asked. Yet the Borough answered the owner’s inquiry only with a vague reference to a “public project.” And the majority held there was no legal consequence to that response.

To which we say: what world is the court living in? Government need not do X, but “should” do it? What on this green earth makes the majority think that “should” means anything? We think that the chances are slim-to-none that the court pronouncing that condemnors “should” do something when they are not required by law to do that something, will result in condemnors not doing anything more than they are required to when there are zero consequences for not doing what they “should” do.

So in the end, all this finger-wagging “condemnors should tell the public” stuff in the opinion is just pirate’s code dicta, a paper tiger.

Borough of Seaside Park v. Shree Jyoti, LLC, No. 089599 (N.J. Aug. 10, 2026)