Hoboken Tenant And Landlord Groups React To Rent Control Landslide Vote

HOBOKEN, NJ — The latest attempt from a landlord group to amend Hoboken's 51-year-old rent control ordinance was voted down on Tuesday night in a landslide.

Local tenant groups declared victory on Tuesday with a partly somber message.

"There's a lot to process right now, and to grieve, and think on," said Hoboken United Tenants in a message Wednesday morning. "The loss of a beloved community member and elected official in Hoboken. The national election. But one little bright spot, in one little place: Hoboken said we want to take care of our neighbors."

The proposed change would have allowed landlords to get a one-time unlimited rent increase after a tenant moves out.

Ron Simoncini, the head of the Mile Square Taxpayers' Association — the property owners' group that had put the change on the ballot — sent this message to supporters, verbatim:

"With last night’s substantial defeat of our rent control referendum, I wanted to provide a few final thoughts on the property rights environment in Hoboken.

"The fact that our question and policy polled so well and we got beat so bad leads to several conclusions:

1. When the Mayor and every council member supports the No vote, you have a very tough hill to climb. Mayor Bhalla’s energy and effectiveness at pushing his agenda were noteworthy and you have to take your hat off to him. I think we won every policy-oriented forum, but the Mayor realized that no matter how sound the policy position we had, simply characterizing our effort as landlord friendly plays to the politics of the moment;
2. The ground game organized through the tenant activists was very strong and very effective and not something we could replicate, in large part because our supporters were intimidated to raise their hands in their own interests. Without a commensurate level of active volunteers, we were left with social media and mail and a small group of paid canvassers who could not cover anywhere close to the amount of ground the No volunteers covered.

"From here, I think the greatest hope of the residential owners in Hoboken takes two paths: litigation and condominium conversion. Both the exempted property owner lawsuits and the administrative challenges to rent control board actions have great promise.

"During the campaign I heard a lot of people advocate for non-compliance as a solution because the enforcement resources in the city are so weak. I don’t think that is an answer and I think it just exacerbates the division with officials and provides energy to the demonization of property owners. You are better off converting and exporting your capital out of Hoboken, as so many of you have done in the past."

Mayor Ravi Bhalla said Wednesday afternoon, “Today, while Hoboken mourns the loss of a true public servant, colleague, friend, and family member, we also recognize an important public victory in our ongoing efforts to preserve housing affordability in our mile square city. I offer my sincere thanks to Hoboken United Tenants for leading an incredible grassroots movement to educate voters on the rent control referendum, and every resident who recognized the critical importance of saving rent control at the ballot box.

"If we are to learn anything from last night, whether personal, national or local, it is that these core values, such as housing for all, bring us together as a community and make us stronger.”

The Vote And Who Voted

With 97.62 percent of districts reporting by Wednesday morning, the numbers were:

• YES (for the change): 5,629
• NO (rejecting the change): 15,184

With ballots mailed in as late as 8 p.m. Tuesday, final numbers may not be known for days. Check the Hudson County election website here for updates.

What's It All About, And Who Voted

Hoboken's local Rent Control Ordinance, which went into effect in 1973, limits landlords to increasing the rents to certain percentage each year, allowing them to also pass along various cost increases. They can also get a 25 percent decontrol every three years.

But the property owners' group said the law needed to be revamped.

They amassed enough petitions on a ballot earlier this year to challenge the law, asking Hoboken residents to vote on a public question this November that would allow landlords to get a one-time decontrol when a current tenant leaves an apartment, if the landlord contributes to an affordable housing fund.

Critics said the change could just lead to more landlords pushing tenants out, because they can get a larger rent increase when a long-term tenant leaves. And it could be years before new housing is built. In fact, tenants have recently told Patch and other media that their landlords had been pressuring them to leave, in different ways. READ MORE: Delivered Vacant? Longtime Tenants Fear Displacement

(See a full story about the proposed change that was voted down here or here).

Only registered voters in Hoboken were able to weigh in.

The margin was much larger than the last time the same landlord group pushed for a decontrol, more than a decade ago.

Read a story about tenant issues in modern Hoboken here.