Citizens of Hoboken:
Hoboken’s November 8, 2011 General Election ballot contains Public Question No. 2: “Shall the Ordinance Z-88, adopted by the City Council of the City of Hoboken, which amends certain provisions of Chapter 155 of the City Code, entitled “Rent Control” be repealed?”
You should vote YES to reject Z-88 for two reasons: first, it is unfair and harmful to tenants, and second, to force the Mayor and Council to implement a process for evaluating alleged problems with and possible amendments to the Rent Control (RC) Law, or any law, which fairly addresses the rights and concerns of all affected citizens, not merely those with the most money.
RC Amendments Z-88 were supposedly created in response to landlord allegations that the RC law was being misadministered, i.e. that some landlords were misinformed by RC administrators on how to conform with the RC law. Instead of verifying and dealing with these allegations, the Mayor and Council simply enacted amendments which weaken tenants’ RC protections and only benefit landlords.
Under the existing RC law, a tenant who has been charged an illegal rent can get back all of the illegal rent overpayment. If Z-88 is enacted, a tenant will only be able to recover at most two years worth of the illegal overpayment and if the tenant does not apply for a legal rent calculation within two years of being given a “disclosure statement” that RC exists, the tenant cannot recover any overpayment. Unfortunately, this disclosure statement does not even reveal that the rent the tenant is paying may be illegal! Z-88 would give the RC Board the “equitable authority” to not follow the law in making decisions concerning rents. Z-88 would change the base rent year from 1973 to 1985, rewarding the landlord for charging an illegal rent prior to 1985. Z-88 would allow landlords to submit possibly unverifiable “alternative proofs” (in place of documents required under the present law) to legitimize past rent increases such as a certified statement from the landlord that a past tenant vacated voluntarily. Finally, Z-88 specifies that more changes to the law will follow, making it more difficult for affected citizens to protest with a referendum petition as they lose their rights one step at a time.
These proposed Z-88 changes reward landlords who violated the law and encourage them to evict tenants who pay legal rents.
All nine of the councilpersons who voted to pass Z-88 indicated on the record that they had problems with it, but they voted for it anyway, forcing concerned citizens to collect 3158 referendum signatures and go to court to get the issue on the ballot for the voters of Hoboken to decide.
If you or any of your friends and neighbors are tenants who will lose RC protections and possibly their homes, you have the opportunity to take part in a democratic process and do something about it: Vote yes to reject Z-88 to defend tenants’ rights and to force the Mayor and Council to properly represent you!
Let your voice be heard: democracy and justice can prevail over money! Vote yes to reject Z-88!
Daniel Tumpson
What you aren't saying is that the judge in that decision said the law was constitutional and firmly upheld most of the rent control law in that decision. That lower court judge did find the "arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional as applied only to one devacancy form during one 3 year period in the early 80s. However even that small victory - the only finding against the law small as that finding was - was invalidated by the higher court, appellate division which found that the Board was not arbitrary in following the ordinance, and cited to the important public purpose of registrations and certificates.
So you have no valid legal decisions anymore to use to mislead the public into thinking the law itself was ever found in the wrong by the courts of the state of New Jersey.
The argument that the lawyer working on a contingency is somehow suspect is laughable. Only the wealthy can afford a lawyer who charges a straight fee. The tenants of Hoboken would have no legal defender to enforce their rights if it wasn't for her. I would suggest that you compare her earnings to that of the lawyers for MSTA and see who is profiting from this. She sure isn't. We tenants are very grateful to her.
The voters of this town sure weren't represented on this issue by the council we elected - most of whom have declared that they stand to profit from the changes. The council ignored all input from the tenants and went with the wealthy real estate industry and their own personal financial interests in this regard. So much for "change" in Hoboken's city government.
People who care about keeping Hoboken a real community will protect their neighbors and friends who will be driven out with most of the middle class if the wealthy real estate industry has its wishes fulfilled by the council will vote YES to keep our law and not to benefit those who break the laws of Hoboken. The many honest landlords here will gain no benefit from the law and we have a good number of landlords who have come out in support of the rent control ordinance and against the changes. They know only those who have been ignoring the law will benefit from the changes. Those who are aware of the FACTS and don't rely on the distortions of the real estate lobby trying to immunize illegal behavior will vote YES.
For more than 25 years, Hoboken has been operating under rent control policies that a judge called “arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional as applied.”
The Council worked for 18 months on amendments that corrected problems with the rent leveling ordinance and administrative procedures, voting 9-0 to adopt those measures.
Working with a contingency attorney who has exploited the gaps on the law and collected millions of dollars in settlements, so-called “tenant representatives’ attended 8 hearings, expressed their opinions and filed hundreds of pages to documents related to rent control. The Council took all of that into account before crafting a law that is fair and will save Hoboken hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in litigation.
Yet this same group, bent on leaving open the opportunity for more litigation that typically results in landlords returning more rent to tenants than they collected from them in rent, has brought a Referendum to reverse the long over-due work of the Council.
Voting No means restoring a fair balance of interests between tenants and landlords. Voting no means protecting the single family, condominium and small building owners who are still here – those who have not already lost their retirements because of the unconscionable greed of lawyers who manipulated the law for their own advantage.