With its recent decision to create a redevelopment plan for its downtown, and possibly the entire borough, Sea Bright officials have set the town on a promising path.

Whether that path ultimately leads to a better borough remains to be seen. The council’s decision to hire Heyer, Gruel and Associates seems like the right choice, both in terms of up front costs and the promise of public involvement. Hearing from and heeding the people who will be most directly affected is the best way for any plan to have a chance at success.

As the council members themselves noted, the borough’s business district is not truly in need of redevelopment so much as revitalization.

The borough may well benefit from the creation of a redevelopment zone, but officials should be very cautious about overstepping in this undertaking.

While they may be loathe to rule out eminent domain, they better be very sure they have exceptional reasons before exercising that most forceful of legal government actions against law-abiding citizens.

Taking property should always be a last resort and the reasons for doing so must serve a clear public purpose. In the case of the borough, there is no blight to remove, so unless land is needed for a specific and easily definable public good, property owners rightly expect to be left alone.

The one possible reason the borough might have to take some property would be to alleviate flooding in the business district.

Councilman Andrew Mencin-sky was right to ask that such an effort be included in the plan. Whether that is even possible, however, will have to be considered very carefully. Pinched between the Shrewsbury River and the Atlantic Ocean, borough property owners may have to accept that flooding during harsh storms is a fact of life.

While Councilman Charles Galloway points out that there may be advantages to creating a redevelopment plan for the whole borough, it is hard to see how such a proposal would not smack of overreaching.

It is likely borough officials will hear just that in the early phases of this effort, if the public is involved from the start.

As long as the concerns of borough property owners are taken seriously, the borough stands a good chance of achieving a positive outcome.

If the council is just paying lip service to that notion, though, the money it will be spending on the planner could end up being the least costly aspect of the endeavor.

In case you haven’t noticed, lawyers don’t work cheap.