Rent Control Discussions Cap Off The Year For The Morristown Council

MORRISTOWN, NJ — Rent control was one of the main topics of discussion at the final Morristown Council meeting, following up on a previous decision to freeze rent increases on rent-controlled units for the calendar year 2023.

Morristown currently has no rent control on its structures, with the exception of apartments built before 1981, according to the town website. During last week's meeting, Councilman Iannaccone suggested that the since-forgotten practice be reinstated.

Iannaccone asked the council to take a second look at reinstituting rent controls because he believed that the increased availability of new apartments made it impossible for young people to accumulate equity and buy homes.

"One of my concerns in town has been, why haven't we expanded rent control, because it only applies to units prior to 1981. We have a market rate vacancy regulation, so we are actually losing units every year and what I'm hearing is our concern is actually the affordability of people being able to remain in town," Iannaccone said.

North and Central Jersey represent two of the 10 most competitive rental markets in the nation, according to RentCafe. The average rent price in Morristown is currently $2,614 for a unit that is 846 sq. ft., RentCafe says.

According to the rental website, 62 percent of Morristown households are renter-occupied, while 3,153 households, or 38 percent, are owner-occupied.

While Iannaccone believes Morristown has done a good job of building and creating affordable housing, he believes rent control is a good solution for those who are "stuck in the middle."

"Doesn't make enough money to have high rent, doesn't have the money to own a home. The other problem we have is nobody has an opportunity to develop equity anymore, these young people. Everything that is being built is a rental," Iannaccone said.

Mayor Tim Dougherty spoke out, reminding the council that Morristown voters had previously voted down rent control about two decades ago in a referendum.

"Legally I'll have the lawyer draft up and look into what the next steps would be. We were on this side of rent control, we lost and it was a very tough fight, but we were overwhelmingly beat by the residents of Morristown," Dougherty said.

Another point raised by the council was that, under rent control, the assessments of the buildings were so low that the town was not receiving the necessary tax dollars from those structures, thereby affecting Morristown's tax structure.

"There is no way, and I'm not a lawyer, that you wouldn't be hit with more lawsuits than you can shake a stick at soon as you try to move forward with this," Dougherty said.

The issue of rent control was previously raised at a meeting this fall following the introduction of a new ordinance citing a clerical error by the town rent leveling department that resulted in an "incorrectly authorized" rent increase in town rent-controlled units.

The error was not explained further by members of the council, but Town Administrator Jillian Barrick did say that all rent-controlled units in town were impacted by the mistake.

As a result, a rent freeze was introduced for all rent-controlled units for the entire year 2023.

The council planned to discuss the issue further in the new year, and Mayor Dougherty stated that he and his staff would prepare the documentation for the potential restoration of rent control, but that the overall process would take about a year.