Hoboken Council Votes On Rent Control Plan After 4 Hours Of Comments

HOBOKEN, NJ — After more than three hours of public testimony Monday night, Hoboken's City Council voted 9-0 against changing the city's 1973 Rent Control Ordinance to allow landlords to get a bigger rent increase when a current tenant moves out.

However, the vote on Monday night isn't the end of the debate over that type of measure. Rather, it's the beginning of a new conversation leading up to a potential citywide vote in November on a landlord-authored amendment that may go further.

This past spring, a landlord group, led by a man who has fought to change rent control in other towns, gathered enough signatures in Hoboken to put rent control changes on the public ballot on Nov. 5.

The council decided that instead of taking the risk of a public vote, it might be best to float a "compromise" instead.

But on Monday night, dozens of tenants and their advocates came out to make several points:

• The "compromise" was composed too quickly, and not enough people knew about it
• It will allow too many apartments to shoot up in price, at a time when Hoboken's rents are already among the highest in the nation.
• It may be better to let the matter go to a public referendum in November and spend the next few months discussing this issue and educating residents
• Rent control is one of the protections allowing Hoboken to retain teachers, the elderly, families, nurses, and artists — all of whom spoke at the meeting
• Landlords already have procedures in place to increase the rent if they have a hardship
• Renters in Hoboken will be unfairly pressured to leave if landlords can get a much higher rent — and several tenants testified they'd experienced recent harassment
• The method the landlord group used to put rent control on the ballot was "misleading"

Speakers at the virtual meeting were given 3 minutes to make their case before the council.

The City Council members warned the public, toward the end of the meeting, that the last time the city had a vote on rent control, in 2012, fewer than 100 votes defeated a landlord-backed decontrol measure. The demographics of Hoboken have changed since then.

When the council members themselves spoke at the end of the meeting, one thing was clear: Rather than being at odds politically, they had worked together for weeks to try to do what they thought was best for the residents.

They also said they had learned more about rent control from each other and at the meeting, and perhaps they had to have more discussions about rent and housing issues. (Among issues, residents say they've been waiting months to get answers from the Rent Control Office about their legal rent.)

New Councilman Paul Presinzano said, "The positive thing is that we worked on it together."

Councilwoman Emily Jabbour said so much was at stake.

"It's about people's homes and their lives," she said. "...It is the will of the people to take this to the ballot. I have to support that. But I will say, this has been a very difficult period of time. I think you've heard that from all of us. Renters are our family members. Renters are our neighbors. But so are some of these landlords...we do have to figure out some of the concerns that were raised tonight on both sides of this."

The 9-0 vote was taken after 11.p.m. You can watch the full meeting here.

To read the background on what led to the vote, and what's next, click here: Big Rent Control Vote To Be Held At Council Meeting Monday

Further Reading About Hoboken Rents And Laws

• READ MORE: Big Rent Control Measure Up For Vote In Hoboken
• READ MORE: Return Of 'Delivered Vacant' In Hoboken? Longtime Renters Fear Demolition, Displacement
• READ MORE: 5 Tenant Protections Other Towns Near Hoboken Have Passed