New Jersey Town Uses Flimsy Blight Allegations To Seize Tire Shop, Apartment Building
Plus: The White House proposes stiff funding cuts at HUD, Baltimore proposes "missing middle" reforms, and Gov. Gavin Newsom urges local governments to clear encampments.
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week's stories include:
- Proposed funding cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
- Zoning reform in Baltimore.
- Encampment crackdowns in California.
But first, our lead story on a case of apparent eminent domain abuse in New Jersey. There, the city of Perth Amboy is using incredibly flimsy blight allegations to seize an apartment building and a family-owned tire shop from owners whose families came to America to escape communism.
In Perth Amboy, Property Rights Take a Back Seat to 'Redevelopment'
Honey Meerzon's parents are Jews from the Soviet Union, who moved to the United States in the 1970s to escape religious discrimination. Luis Romero's parents fled Fidel Castro's Cuba when he was eight years old.
The two ended up as neighboring business owners at the corner of Smith and Herbert Streets in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. It's there that Romero has been running his family's tire shop, Quick Tire, for the past 20 years. Meerzon has owned the four-unit rental property next door for the past 10.
Now, these two children of refugees from communism are having their businesses taken from them by the all-too-American process of eminent domain.
You are reading Rent Free from Christian Britschgi and Reason. Get more of Christian's urban regulation, development, and zoning coverage.
Last month, the City Council of Perth Amboy voted that Meerzon and Romero's properties were not, in fact, comfortable homes or a successful business, but are rather blighted hazards.
Because their two buildings are too close together, too close to the street, and have some (since-collected) litter and stray cats in the backyard, the city says it is now entitled to take the properties.
Meerzon and Romero strongly object to the idea that their properties are in any way blighted. They argue that the city's report claiming otherwise is riddled with erroneous complaints and fatal factual errors.
Nevertheless, the city has moved forward with seizing their properties, which sit right on the edge of a massive city-facilitated warehouse project.
Both property owners now face a looming deadline at the end of May to file a lawsuit challenging the seizure.
"They refuse to answer our calls. They refuse to answer any of our lawyers," says Meerzon. "They're waiting for us to go to superior court to monetarily drain us until we have no choice but to take whatever they offer us."
Neither Perth Amboy's mayor nor any members of the City Council responded to Reason's request for comment.
Both Meerzon and Romero see a dark irony in their properties being seized by the city, given their family's backgrounds.
"[My parents] said this is the only way you get on your feet. You have to take a risk, you have to make an investment, you have to leave a legacy for your children," Meerzon tells Reason. "This is what happens to the legacy they dreamt of having coming here."
"The reason [my parents] left Cuba is the system how it was, they just come to your home, say 'we want this property. You have to get out,'" says Romero. "Here it's done legally."
Read the entire story here.
The White House Proposes Steep Cuts to HUD
The Trump White House's budget proposal released earlier this month proposes steep cuts to federal housing programs. The administration is asking for a 44 percent cut to current funding levels for the next fiscal year, according to an analysis from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
The $26 billion in proposed cuts would significantly reduce funding for rental assistance programs administered by HUD.
It would also zero out funding for the Community Development Block Grant program and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program.
Also on the chopping block is the Pathways to Removing Obstacles (PRO) to Housing program (a.k.a. "baby YIMBY grants") that was intended to reward cities for reforming their zoning codes. Read some of Reason's criticism of that program, and its poorly targeted grant awards, here and here.
Baltimore Takes Up Zoning Reform
On Monday, Baltimore City Council members introduced a package of bills to allow more homes on less land.
The proposed reforms, which have the backing of Mayor Brandon Scott, would allow between two and four homes on land currently zoned for single-family units, permit taller single-stair buildings, and eliminate off-street parking requirements, reports The Baltimore Banner.
"Nothing stands more clearly in our way than our own laws of prohibition and division," said Councilman Ryan Dorsey at a Monday news conference announcing the reforms, per the Banner. "The bills being introduced today are the first, modest step to correcting course."
California Gov. Gavin Newsom Proposes Encampment Crackdown
On Monday, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom urged cities and counties to adopt a model ordinance targeting homeless encampments written by his office.
The model ordinance would prohibit "persistent camping" in a single location and camping on sidewalks. It would require that local governments "provide notice and make every reasonable effort to identify and offer shelter prior to clearing an encampment."
The Supreme Court's 2024 Grants Pass decision gave local governments more freedom to clear encampments and cite the homeless for sleeping in public, even when there are no local shelter beds available.
The release of the model ordinance was accompanied by the governor's release of $3.3 billion in voter-approved funding for supportive housing and treatment programs.
Local governments in California are complaining that the governor is blaming them for inaction on homelessness while not providing them with enough funding to address the problem, reports the Associated Press. Advocates for the homeless argue that encampment clearances are punitive and merely separate the homeless from social service providers.
Quick Links
- First Things reviews Yoni Appelbaum's Stuck and finds broad agreement on his criticisms of zoning regulations.
- A country club sues to block a townhome development enabled by recent "missing middle" reforms in Raleigh, North Carolina. Did someone say snob zoning?
- Could Hong Kong get even more dense? This Works in Progress essay by Benedict Springbett argues that yes, yes it can.
- Washington Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a recently passed rent stabilization bill into law. Critics argue the measure will reduce the supply of rental housing.
- Some YIMBY propaganda spotted in the wild in D.C. The rebellion is growing.
Spotted some YIMBY propaganda in the Meridian Hill park bathrooms pic.twitter.com/NYBcVLzSGO
— Christian Britschgi (@christianbrits) May 12, 2025
