The Hoboken Business Alliance Needs to Go!

The “Hoboken Business Alliance,” (herein further referred to as HBA) is neither about business, nor an alliance, and should be shutdown. The HBA is a municipal board supposedly organized to advance the commercial interests of Hoboken’s business community. To that end it has the legal power to mandate a fee paid by some (but not all) property owning businesses in town. This means many of the dwindling number of mom and pop resident landlords who organized their small properties as LLC’s, must pay not only municipal taxes on their property, state and federal income tax, but an additional de facto property tax to the HBA.

While the HBA claims this isn’t a tax, if those who must legally pay it do not, they will eventually face the same consequences as if they neglect to pay municipal taxes. Moreover, under Hoboken’s rent control regulations, as the HBA tax is misrepresented as a fee, the small landlord cannot pass on the cost to tenants as they can with regular tax increases. Thus, City Hall has created an economic disincentive for small landlords to keep their properties. Rather they now have even more of a reason to cash out and sell to the large developers who build block long monolithic complexes and are completely exempt from rent control for 30 years.

This is not to vilify the developer - it is to highlight the unfairness of a situation which advantages them. It is to vilify the HBA because of its inherently evil structure and just as importantly, because all Hoboken residents are getting ripped off.

Seasonal decoration, art installations, a limited garbage can pilot program, and street cleaning staff are the core of the HBA agenda. All services the city once provided exclusively and, in most cases, still splits the cost of with the HBA. This begs the question - have either the HBA or city budget shrunk? No. In fact both have grown - meaning those residents who do not pay the HBA tax are getting even less bang for their buck than before and victims of the HBA are getting doubly hosed. Yet when the HBA was first proposed we were promised that city spending would go down as the HBA would be engaged in beautification activities the city had previously done – we were lied to.

City Hall needs an advocate for Hoboken businesses, for landlords who live in town, for the small homeowner and renter, against raising taxes and fees, and for the abolition of the HBA. It’s the only moral position.

Joshua Einstein

Hoboken City Council Candidate