The Hoboken City Council unanimously voted down an effort to weaken the city’s rent control measures and allow landlords to raise rents on certain apartments on Monday night, setting up a high-stakes fight this fall.
The Democratic-led Council rejected a proposal that would have changed the rules for when and how rent can be raised on low-priced apartments in Hoboken. The proposal was backed by the city’s landlords, who said they were looking to increase prices to help cover their expenses.
The 9-0 vote by the local Legislature now sets up an even bigger fight in November, when voters will be asked to weigh in on a ballot referendum that housing advocates and officials say will gut rent control in the 1-square mile city just across the Hudson River from the Big Apple. Meanwhile, property owners say that the rent adjustment is needed to generate enough money to maintain and update buildings.
The fight over rent control in Hoboken underscores a major affordability issue in the New York City metro area and New Jersey. In the past few years, median rents in Hoboken have steadily increased to $3,850 a month, according to Zillow. And over the past two decades, the number of rent-controlled apartments in the city has dipped from 12,000 to 8,000.
Statewide, experts estimate that New Jersey is short more than 200,000 affordable apartments for low-income residents.
The dramatic fight over rent control in Hoboken came on swiftly this summer.
In July, a Hoboken landlord advocacy group, the Mile Square Taxpayer Association, reached the threshold to get a proposed initiative on the November ballot. The measure would allow any vacant rent-controlled unit to go market rate if the landlord pays a one-time fee of $2,500 to the Hoboken Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
The change would be a departure from the current rules, which allow landlords of rent-controlled apartments to hike the monthly rent for new tenants by up to 25%. In 2019, New York eliminated the so-called vacancy bonus, which let property owners raise rents when tenants turn over, as part of a broader overhaul of rent laws.
Fearing what the property owner-backed referendum would do to Hoboken’s already-limited affordable housing stock, the City Council sought what it called a “compromise” with the landlords. The deal would allow for rent increases starting at 25% and going up to 100% on vacated apartments, depending on how long a tenant had lived there. In exchange, the landlords were offering to drop their ballot referendum.
Ron Simoncini, executive director of Mile Square Taxpayer Association, said his organization would withdraw the ballot question if the Council passed the compromise measure and Mayor Ravi Bhalla signed it into law. Earlier on Monday, Bhalla said he was prepared to veto the change to the ordinance if the Council passed it.
“It says something that in a region like New York City you could get something on a ballot like that in Hoboken,” said City Councilmember Phil Cohen. “It bodes very badly for the region with respect to affordable rentals.”
Cohen said Hoboken’s leaders needed to focus on “crush[ing]” the ballot referendum this fall, though he acknowledged some risks. “It will be on the ballot with a presidential election where people are distracted and where there will be well-funded proponents of that referendum,” he said.
Cohen also accused the Mile Square Taxpayer Association of collecting signatures under “false pretenses,” and claimed that people were “tricked” into believing they were signing a petition in support of affordable housing.
Simoncini, the association’s executive director, called that allegation “a bunch of hooey.” He said his group needed 894 signatures to get on the ballot, and received more than 1,200.
Simoncini added that apartments with longtime tenants often need tens of thousands of dollars in upgrades and repairs in between occupants, and that the current rent rules don’t allow this.
Cohen said the landlords’ provision calling for $2,500 donations to the Hoboken Affordable Housing Trust Fund in exchange for raising rents wouldn’t generate more affordable housing.
“Assume that there were a thousand affordable units — that would generate just $2.5 million,” he said. “In this housing market, $2.5 million isn’t going to build you a whole lot of affordable housing.”
On Tuesday, Bhalla said he was “pleased” with the Council’s vote against the landlord-backed proposal and was “fully confident” the ballot referendum would be defeated.