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After listening to input from landlords and affordable housing advocates, the City Council is scheduled to introduce its own rent control ordinance at tonight’s council meeting. 

“We’re doing this because this is a council policy in the end, and we decided let’s dig down and let’s get it done,” Councilwoman Eileen Chapman previously told the triCityNews newspaper. “We’re trying to find a happy medium.”

The issue was suddenly elevated when the Asbury Park Affordable Housing Coalition (APAHC) submitted the required number of signatures on a petition in November to place their own rent control ordinance on the ballot in a public referendum, which is scheduled for April 20. 

In response, the Asbury Park Property Owners Coalition, a coalition of landlords, drafted their own proposal.

If the council introduces their proposal tonight as planned, there will be a public hearing at the next council meeting on March 10, after which the council may take action to pass the measure. If any substantive amendments are made to the ordinance, there has to be another public hearing at the following council meeting before action can be taken. 

If the alternative ordinance from the affordable housing advocates is approved by voters on April 20, it will replace any rent control ordinance that council approves before then. Further, that new voter-approved rent control ordinance cannot be amended by the council for three years. 

Here are the how the various proposals compare in their major details: 

The council proposal would cap annual rent increases for tenants at 3.5 percent annually. If the inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) ever goes about that level, then the rent increase will be capped at the CPI.

In comparison, the proposed APAHC ordinance before the voters on April 20 caps rent increases at the CPI, with increases not allowed over 4 percent. The coalition of landlords ordinance proposed a cap on rents of 6 percent, but that includes any increases for capital improvements to a property.

Both the council’s and the APAHC proposal allows landlords to charge more for capital improvements, but those plans have to be approved by a Rent Leveling Board. The board would handle the administration of the rent control regulations under both proposed ordinances, as well as requests for any hardship rent increases by landlords exceeding the rent caps. The landlords’ proposal has a “Rent Increase Board” to consider appeals from landlords for increases over 6 percent annually. 

The composition of those boards also differ among the proposals. The Rent Leveling Board under the council proposal has seven members – with at least two tenants and at least two landlords. The affordable housing coalition also has seven board members, but with four tenants and three landlords. The landlords’ Rent Increase Board would have five members: Two tenants, one landlord and two homeowners. 

Also differing in the proposals is vacancy decontrol, which allows a landlord to raise the rent to market levels when a tenant leaves. The new rent would then be subject to the rent caps. The proposed ordinance by the affordable housing advocates does not have vacancy decontrol. The proposed council ordinance, as well as the landlords’ proposal, allows vacancy decontrol. 

Another difference is that the council’s proposal limits the rent control ordinance to buildings with at least five rental units. The affordable housing advocates’ proposal covers almost all units rented in the city, including condominiums and single-family homes. (All proposals exclude housing already subject to affordable housing regulations, such as affordable senior citizen housing or other housing provided by the Asbury Park Housing Authority. In addition, under state law new apartment buildings are exempt for 30 years.) 

The council’s proposed rent control ordinance – which can be viewed here — immediately came under fire from both affordable housing advocates and landlords. 

“In all, we believe this ordinance does not have a lot of protections for tenants. We were hoping for something more progressive from the city,” said two of the affordable housing activists involved in developing the APAHC proposal, Tracy Rogers and Derek Minno Bloom. 

In particular, the two took issue with the lack of a specific cap on rents, as they say that the CPI could theoretically go to 15 percent in one year, and then 15 percent would be the rent increase. They also expressed opposition to unlimited vacancy decontrol, as they said if there is high turnover on a unit than rent increases could be excessive. 

Also problematic for the two was the council’s proposal covering rental units in buildings with five units or more. “This will also lead to landlords buying smaller buildings and raising rents considerably,” they said. “This is exactly what is happening in Montclair where more than 30 percent of the African-American population has been displaced due to gentrification.”

In addition, the two expressed concern with the make-up of the Rent Leveling Board. Requiring a minimum of only two tenants on the seven-member board could lead to a board where tenants could be in the minority by a vote of 5-2, they said. 

Minno Bloom said that he and Rogers were speaking for themselves, and the full Asbury Park Affordable Housing Coalition is expected to release a statement. 

As for potential areas of compromise, the two suggested the following should be considered:

The council’s ordinance can continue to allow increases up to 3.5 percent, and the CPI above that, but there needs to be a specific cap on increases, such as 5 percent, regardless of how high the CPI may rise. 

As for vacancy decontrol, the two suggested that a unit be decontrolled not more than once every three to five years, and the rent increase be capped at “10 percent or so.” 

They also said the seven-member Rent Leveling board should have at least 3 tenant members, and that a vote should not be taken when there are more landlord members present than tenant members. 

With the deadline to withdraw the referendum looming, the timing is tight for the stakeholders involved to come to a compromise and avoid going to referendum. 

Compromise amendments would be approved by the Council on March 10, and the APAHC would have to take action to cancel the referendum a day later on March 11, which is the deadline. After that, the referendum must go forward.

Final passage of the amended ordinance could take place at the next council meeting on March 24, as the amended ordinance has to be published in a legal newspaper so the public is on notice and gets a chance to comment at another public hearing. 

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the landlords’ coalition was sharply critical of the council proposal.

While acknowledging that the council ordinance is “not as awful” as the proposal by the affordable housing coalition, Ron Simoncini, the Executive Director of the Asbury Park Property Owners Coalition, outlined the problems with the council’s ordinance and handling of the issue. 

Simoncini said that there was never a study to show that rent control was needed in Asbury Park, there were non-rent control options to safeguard tenant stability, and the referendum advanced by tenant advocates was “terrible policy and even worse regulatory imposition” which was rejected already by the council (who voted 3-1 against it in December). 

“The Council knew tenant advocates were posturing to get a counter-proposal so they could leverage a mid-point compromise,” Simoncini said. “The Council should have taken control of its own policy and challenged the referendum’s authenticity rather than play politics with it.”

He predicted that the tenant advocates will not withdraw their referendum “simply because the council moved forward with their own law.”

By proposing a rent control ordinance, the Council “handed the tenant advocates a political victory, because supporters of rent control will use the moment to validate that rent control was needed and without their movement the council would not have acted, and they handed the homeowners a greater share of the tax burden,” Simoni said. 

“It may be easier to defeat the referendum with tenant protections in place – we will see – but lurking in the background always will be the specter of the continued use of rent control as a battle ground for warring political factions,” Simoni said. 

“In the long run, will we take comfort in the fact that the council’s version of rent control is not as awful as the tenant advocates? Maybe, but it certainly leaves a hollow feeling about the quality of policy development in Asbury Park,” he said.  

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