Managers and tenants of the Hoboken Housing Authority appear to be one step closer to signing a new lease governing the 1,353 federally-subsidized units in the southwest corner of town, thanks to major concessions tenant advocates say management is about to make. The new lease, which was originally approved by the HHA's board at a sparsely-attended public meeting last year, has not been signed by hundreds of tenants who feel that provisions charging them if they own more than one television and limiting the amount of time that guests can stay are unfair. But tenants now say that HHA managers have agreed to strip the new lease of controversial items. "They say that they are going to change everything that we are asking them to change," said Linda Walker, a lifelong resident of the HHA and one of the most outspoken critics of the new lease. "This lease is really unfair. They want to charge us for pets. It's $100 for a dog. $25 for a cat. The drug dealers can stay, but they want to charge us for the goldfish. Next, I bet they are going to start to charge us for the rats and the roaches." E. Troy Washington, the Executive Director of the HHA, declined to comment for this article. Walker said that Washington has promised to hold an open meeting with the tenants to iron out problems with the lease. In the meantime, tenants say that housing managers are pressuring residents to simply cross out what they do not like about the lease and sign it anyway. "Tenants have to realize and know that they should not be signing that lease yet," said Walker. "Scratching things out could get us in trouble down the road because they are going to say that we did that, not them. The problem is that HUD is telling them they need a lease so they are trying to get one signed." HHA residents organized a public meeting last month in which hundreds of people came to protest the new lease and signed protest petitions that were sent to the HUD Secretary. "We've crossed a real milestone, because they said you could not fight these people," said Walker. "So many people said that it could not be done, and we're doing it."