Dear Editor:
Last week Mayor Zimmer wrote that it was too complicated to explain her position on rent control in Hoboken. As a lifelong resident of Hoboken – yes, born and raised – and a member of a family that has been paying property taxes on its home for more than 60 years, my position is not complicated at all: It is completely fair for new residents coming to Hoboken to pay a fair rent. It is completely fair to expect the chief executive of our city to be able to formulate a fair policy and fairly articulate her position. It is Mayor Zimmer’s politics that are complicated, not the issue of rent control. What she is really saying is it will hurt her politically to make an honest assessment of the rent control issue.
It’s a shortcut we’ve seen in Hoboken for 40 years because siding with tenants who are more numerous than property owners is a temptation politicians cannot resist. Mayor Zimmer has never once addressed the unconscionable treatment property owners have endured under the Hoboken rent leveling office and rent leveling board. Through her apathy or consent, Mayor Zimmer has permitted them to compromise their offices to provide windfalls for tenants and their attorneys despite that property owners like myself followed all the rules. I nearly lost a property that has been in my family for 60 years as a result of years of regulatory abuses and corrupt practices in the rent leveling office and on the rent leveling board. Despite the City Council passing amendments to reform rent control, the office and the board continue to manipulate rules to the detriment of property owners.
The problem here is that the city has accepted a horrible lie that is borne of politics: tenants are vulnerable and property owners are found guilty before they are even accused. Every evidence flies in the face of that position. The truth is tenants have all the protections and property owners have none. When property taxes go up by 47 percent do rents go up by 47 percent? No – they go up by less than 2 percent. Even if the yes votes prevails all existing tenants and most new tenants will have their rents regulated by the council – but at least when units are vacant the property owner will be able to charge enough so that they can make needed improvements to aging buildings.
Mayor Zimmer, isn’t it time that you considered what might be fair to those of us whose families built this city and continue to be its backbone? Let me simplify it for you: Your policy encourages devaluing or even taking a family’s property so someone else will get a windfall and support your political ambitions, and that is deeply offensive to any right-thinking person.
Sincerely,
Connie Coppola
Park Avenue Hoboken
Citizens of Hoboken, on Election Day, we must send the strongest possible message to MSTA possible. VOTE NO on Hoboken Public Question #2
i don't see the city prevailing in any lawsuit related to rent control. i see a judge saying "amend your class action and keep on suing -- i can't decide yet what they owe you."
i think the message that is being sent about fabrication and robbery is being sent by the property owners to the tenants. and the message is: there is no more influence to be had from your fear-mongering and character assassinations. a rational, thoughtful approach to discussing the issue is what's required and you lost all of your credibility with your Referendum. None of the abuses and nonsense you claimed would happen did.
enough is enough -- you can't strangle the lifeblood of the town because you can get 6 people to scream that they are worried about eviction when their status as tenants will not change one bit as a result of this law. it's dishonest. verifiably dishonest. your anonymous attacks lack ethic.
Are you finally ready to reveal who you really are? You post has the unmistakable attributes of the writing of the self infested tenant attorney who has made it a cottage industry suing property owners for violations of the ordinance caused by the city's erratic enforcement and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney fees. Btw even Portugal, the location of you retirement estate has updated their rent control laws!
Reveal yourself!
Charles Gormally
Brach Eichler LLC
Can't spell, can't write properly. Yep, you're a lawyer!
Persecution complex much Connie? Connie and her family deserve more because they were born here and, doncha know, just like Jefferson Starship, they Built This City!
What Connie doesn't tell you is she is a card-carrying member of msta and the landlord of at least three apartment buildings. If I lived in one of her apts. I'd be getting a rent calculation immediately.
this is another example of why the tenant position is so disconnected from reality. they want the law to make them feel better protected at any cost to anyone else, despite the fact that their emotional state has nothing to do with the equities involved. the law is not a teddy bear that can ease fears about the boogie man. there is no boogie man and if there were, that teddy bear wouldn't be able to do a darn thing about it.
time to deal with the reality, Hoboken, and not the symbolic patronage to a tenancy that is amply protected as it is. vote Yes and make it fair once and for all.