Two New Jersey residents have been locked in a protracted legal battle with the City of Perth Amboy, which is trying to seize their property through eminent domain for over a year.
Honey Meerzon and Luis Romero are fighting to prevent the city from taking property that their families worked for decades to build. Meerzon owns a multi-family home that she is renting to tenants. Romero owns an auto repair shop right next to Meerzon's property.
The city designated both of their properties as “blighted” and is using eminent domain to appropriate their properties for a real estate developer seeking to build a 44-acre site, according to the lawsuit filed by Meerzon and Romero with the assistance of the Institute for Justice (IJ).
Meerzon is a mother who bought the home in 2016 to create a legacy for her children. Her family fled the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and settled in the United States to pursue the American dream.
“My family came to the country for a better life,” she told Townhall. “I was born here. I’m an educated person. I went to college. I have my Master’s. I tried to put myself on my feet with this property, and they’re taking it away just to give it to someone who has a connection.”
Honey Meerzon posing in front of her property.
Meerzon’s parents escaped an authoritarian regime with little concept of private property, only to see their daughter face a similar ordeal in America.
Romero’s Quick Tire & Auto, a business that has served Perth Amboy since 1976, has become a staple in the community. Many of his employees have worked with him for over a decade. His father fled Cuba after Fidel Castro began amassing power. "My dad was like 32, 33 years old. He came here with nothing. He worked hard, several jobs,” he told Townhall.
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His father fled Cuba, taking Luis with him because he was approaching military age. His father feared he might be sent to Angola to fight in its civil war. His father owned a fruit stand until Castro’s regime approached him.
“The government confiscated that…They came in when Fidel came in and said, ‘either you give us half or, you know, you have to close the business,'" Romero said. "In his case, it wasn't worth…splitting because he wasn't making that much only to survive."
"Here I am now in the United States. And I've been grateful because this is my country, the United States of America,” Romero continued.
He added, “And I never thought, to be honest with you, that this could happen to me here...that they come in and take your property legally."
Luis Romero in his auto repair shopRomero recalled being approached by a different real estate developer ten years ago. When he indicated that he did not wish to sell his property, the broker warned, “If you don't sell, it's going to be bad for you because the city is going to take it away from you. You're going to get nothing."
Meerzon didn’t even know the city was eyeing her property until she received a phone call from an attorney. "I would say about now, a year and a half ago, I received actually a letter from a lawyer saying, Basically, your home is being taken away with eminent domain. Please call me for more information. So I almost had a heart attack,” she said.
New Jersey often uses the “blight” designation to justify using eminent domain to claim private property. In Meerzon and Romero’s case, the city has a thin justification for applying the "blight" label.
Meerzon recounted, "The report talked about, let's say, two pieces of cardboard on our driveway the day before Recycle Day. It talks about a stray cat that's not even in our yard."
Romero said, "They're saying that our property is too close to the sidewalk. And if you know anything about the city of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, all the homes, all the properties, they're all basically right on top of the sidewalk."
Honey Meerzon's rental property (left) next to Luis Romero's auto repair shop (right)Bobbi Taylor, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, told Townhall that the city rezoned the area and mandated that any new construction must be placed a certain distance away from the street. “But all that means is that they can’t be built the same way now as they were then,” she explained.
Neither Meerzon nor Romero had ever been cited for code violations.
"We've never had any issues in that property at all,” Romero said. "My building is pretty solid. There's nothing wrong with the building. Not at all. Very clean.”
Even further, the city did not even attempt to work with the property owners to try to find a better solution. Both have offered to make alterations to their buildings to fit into the city’s plans. Perth Amboy rebuffed these offers.
Meerzon and Romero both spoke at public meetings packed with supporters. "We had a lot of people show up and support at least almost between 80, 100 individuals in the community. And they spoke, and they were against what they were going to do," Romero said.
Still, the city council voted to take the properties. All but one councilmember, Hailey Cruz, voted against the measure.
NJ cities can take private property for "redevelopment" if it's blighted.
— Christian Britschgi (@christianbrits) May 15, 2025
What's blight? Perth Amboy says it's when there's trash and stray cats on adjacent city land.
For that reason, two business owners, both children of communist refugees, could lose everything 1/x 🧵 pic.twitter.com/kI3ArG3NSx
Historically, eminent domain was only to be used to take property for public use, not for private entities. However, the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London has allowed a government to take property for a private entity if it serves a “public purpose.”
Several states, including New Jersey, passed laws reforming eminent domain to disallow state governments from seizing property for private corporations. But New Jersey created the “blight” loophole, which allows a city or the state to seize property by applying this label. Unfortunately, the term “blight” can, and has been, stretched to apply to areas that are clearly not blighted.
“In New Jersey and in other states, this amorphous term of blight essentially [is] being twisted or expanded so much that it literally can mean anything,” Taylor said.
The attorney further explained, "We'd like a New Jersey court to say, yeah, you can't actually just call something blight when it's not. You actually need to have substantial, credible evidence of the things that are in the statute."
The ramifications of this case extend beyond Meerzon’s and Romero’s situation. If the city is able to take their property, it could have consequences for other residents. "Please speak out," Meerzon urged. "Right now, no one is protected."
The Superior Court of New Jersey is currently handling the lawsuit.
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