NJ's Governor Christie takes sand dune fight to court

By Daniel Bases NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's administration on Thursday went to court in an effort to seize beach front property owned by the city of Margate in order to complete an Atlantic coastline storm protection system of sand dunes. The coast was severely damaged in 2012's Superstorm Sandy, which was directly responsible for 147 deaths in the United States, destroyed more than 650,000 homes and overall caused nearly $50 billion in damages. Over 90 percent of the easements needed to construct the system are secured, Christie's office said in a statement. "The refusal of remaining holdouts along the New Jersey coastline to provide easements has forced us to seek condemnation of portions of their properties so we don't further delay these critical Army Corps projects that will protect lives and property," New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said in the statement. Margate, located on a coastal barrier island south of Atlantic City, resists voluntarily providing property easements on 87 parcels of city land necessary for the project. Ten private property owner easements are also needed, but they are not part of the lawsuit Christie filed in Atlantic County Superior Court. Margate's business administrator, Richard Deaney, says resistance to the governor's plan is based on factors including the low assessed value of the city's land, at just $29,000, and the "arbitrary" nature of the plan without considering the town's existing protection system of wooden bulkheads. "It will cause us millions of dollars worth of expenditures over time to replace those sand dunes when we have a bulkhead system that has been in place for 60 years," Deaney said. "Margate is not against any measures that are reasonable for storm protection." Deaney said 996 of 998 damage claims from Superstorm Sandy were from non-beach front property owners who were hit by water from the bay-side, rather than the ocean. Christie's office cited significant overwash of Margate's beaches and damage to its bulkhead in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which it said required the town to file for Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to help pay for the cleanup. Ahead of Hurricane Joaquin last week, Christie called Margate "selfish" for resisting the plan. "We believe their measures are arbitrary and we would like to sit down, like the law requires, and point this out and negotiate with the Department of Environmental Protection," Deaney said. "But Governor Christie believes we are 'selfish.' (Reporting by Daniel Bases; Editing by Dan Grebler)