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Hoboken residents preserve rent control rules in landslide vote
By
Mike Hayes
Published Nov 6, 2024
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By
Mike Hayes
Published Nov 6, 2024
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Rent control rules will remain in place in Hoboken, after voters roundly rejected a ballot measure Tuesday night that would have scrapped the current regulations for raising rent on rent-controlled apartments in the New Jersey city.
The measure lost by about a 3-1 margin, with more than 15,000 people voting against it compared to 5,600 in favor, according to the latest vote tally by the Hudson County Clerk’s office. The change would have allowed landlords to raise rents on vacated rent-controlled apartments to market rates by paying $2,500 to the city’s affordable housing trust fund.
Instead, the current rules, which permit landlords to raise the rent on the city’s thousands of rent-controlled apartments by 25% when a tenant vacates, will remain.
Voters' rejection of the ballot measure may be a symptom of their concern over New Jersey's lack of affordable housing. With state officials claiming the Garden State needs at least 200,000 affordable apartments for its most rent-burdened residents, the rent control referendum fight in Hoboken highlights how local issues are generating much debate and calls for action.
Landlord groups said they needed this change to the rules to generate revenue so they can rehabilitate dilapidated properties. At the same time, Hoboken tenant activists vehemently opposed the rule changes, claiming it would significantly deplete the city's stock of rent-controlled dwellings.
“It was a crushing victory that rejected the landlord’s initiative,” said City Councilmember Phil Cohen, who opposed the measure.
In August, Cohen and the members of the City Council unanimously voted against the proposed changes to the rent control rules, which set up Tuesday’s referendum vote.
Mile Square Taxpayer Association, the landlord group that orchestrated the push to change the rules, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Executive Director Ron Simoncini told Gothamist in August that the current rules hurt both property owners and renters.
“If the idea is that providing these excessive tenant protections that defeat anybody's point of owning real estate will ultimately work for the tenants, they're wrong,” he said.
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.
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla did not immediately comment on the measure being voted down. In August, Bhalla joined members of the City Council in urging a vote of “no” for the referendum. In a post on X on Tuesday, Bhalla said he was asking again that residents vote against the referendum and “help us protect our neighbors and our city’s affordability.”
“Tell the wealthy landlords that Hoboken isn’t for sale,” the mayor said.
Cohen said that the City Council's decision to take up the issue in August helped inform members of the public who may have been unaware of the rent-control issue, leading to a “broad coalition” that rejected the rule change.
“[Residents] had several months to think about how rent control affected them and their lives and their families,” he said.
Tagged
rent control
new jersey
hoboken
Mike Hayes
Mike Hayes covers equity and access to opportunity in New Jersey. He joined WNYC and Gothamist in 2023. Before that, he worked as a freelance journalist writing about policing and criminal justice. He has written for ProPublica, CNN, HuffPost, BuzzFeed News and The Appeal. He is also the author of the book, “The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and the Broken Promises of Police Reform.” In 2019, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
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