Monica Yant Kinney | No public good has come from 'cleansing' the Mart

I almost let this one slide, thinking I had run out of ways to slam the raw deal down at the Pennsauken Mart.

But then I drove by the demolition site and started imagining the apartment complex that will rise from the rubble.

Yes, an apartment complex.

In the end, Camden County officials ruined the lives and livelihoods of 100 mom-and-pop merchants to build a freaking apartment complex.

They have the nerve to call it Renaissance Walk.

And they prefer you think of it in more luxurious terms, as "an upscale rental community with outstanding amenities designed to attract young professionals" who will be thrilled to pay $2,000 a month to live next to not one but two highways in Pennsauken.

So much for government's seizing private property only when necessary to serve "the public good," like building a school or a road.

Renaissance Walk will boast an indoor-outdoor pool. Sounds inviting, but if the masses can't splash, how is it for the public good?

Defending the debacle

Six years after the Mart battle began, Camden County officials are still defending the debacle, which has cost nearly $30 million already.

The original grand plan called for replacing the blighted Mart building with a convention center and minor-league hockey arena for a team owned by Democratic Party boss George Norcross.

The greedy suits even tried to steamroll a church across the street, an act that landed them in court and on a celestial watch list.

A subsequent proposal for 700 homes, a lake, a boathouse, an arts theater, shops and eateries promised to turn the gritty intersection of Routes 73 and 130 into a South Jersey Xanadu.

Amid mounting pressure to sign a deal, any deal, county officials finally sold out to rentals.

"Sometimes, things don't necessarily go as planned," explained the Camden County Improvement Authority's executive director, Jeffrey Schwartz.

"We feel this brand-new upscale community represents the highest and best use for the site."

He might, but do the ends justify the means when the Mart merchants were guilty of nothing more than selling bargains to people who count their change?

An eminent-domain opponent I know calls the practice "economic ethnic cleansing." I thought that was harsh, until Camden County officials used their power to rid Pennsauken of so-called undesirables.

Dana Berliner, a lawyer at the libertarian Institute for Justice, said eminent-domain projects were often rooted in snobbery.