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To the Editor, Asbury Park Sun:

I urge a NO vote on Tuesday in the rent control referendum. 

I’m not a landlord, and I’m not a renter. I signed the original petition (twice!) to get the referendum on the ballot because I wanted the City Council to act on rent control. They did. And they got most of it right. 

Tenants are protected under the council’s ordinance, and adverse side effects on homeowners and small businesses are kept to a minimum. Once the council acted, the referendum organizers should have withdrawn the referendum. They refused.  So, we now have a divisive and unnecessary referendum that reeks of political retribution.

If something goes wrong with the referendum ordinance, it can’t be changed by the council for three years. It can only be changed with another election. Another referendum. Another campaign. In contrast, the council’s ordinance is nimbler and more responsive … it can be adjusted in real time according to what’s happening on the ground.

Because of the way it was drafted, the referendum ordinance will incentivize landlords to convert their rental properties into condos, kicking out locals and families who may have been living here for decades, and selling them to the Wall Street crowd. That’s its biggest flaw. That means even lower enrollment in our schools, which leads to less state financial aid, which leads to (you guessed it) homeowners paying more in taxes.

Another problem: Under the referendum plan, the property tax burden shifts to small business commercial tenants. Small businesses will get squeezed and close up, replaced by national chains who can pay the increased property taxes that get directly passed on in their leases.  

These aren’t scare tactics or as the YES campaign called it “ghost stories” – this is a reality. It’s what happens time and time again in countless communities. It’s what happened in Williamsburg and the Lower East Side. St. Marks Place. Inwood. Harlem. Greenpoint… Gentrification actually accelerated when overreaching and illogically-drafted rent control was enacted.

CBGB’s – the cultural nucleus of any band that mattered in the past 40 years, the incubator of punk rock – is now a John Varvatos ® shoe boutique. Trash and Vaudville gone. Bleeker Bob’s closed. Hundreds of cafes, art galleries, and independently-owned shops closed in all of those neighborhoods — replaced by Starbucks, Urban Outfitters, Gristedes, etc.

I’ve lived in the downtown since 2005. I don’t want to see that happen to Asbury Park. Like you, I love and enjoy our independently-owned and corporate-free small businesses. We can’t lose what has made our city the cultural Mecca of New Jersey.

Mayor Moor, Deputy Mayor Quinn, and the City Council have taken a methodical and thoughtful approach to rent control — protecting local businesses that will surely close up under the referendum, as well as making sure the burden on homeowners is not crushing. 

Most importantly, the city council’s rent control ordinance — unlike the referendum — will not push landlords to convert their rentals to condos, driving locals and families out of our city. 

I hope that you’ll join me in voting NO vote on the rent control ordinance this Tuesday. The city council’s plan should remain on the books. 

Joe Grillo

Asbury Park

[This letter represents the opinion of its writer and is not representative of any opinion of the Asbury Park Sun staff. All readers are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor to news@asburyparksun.com for our consideration. For guidelines on letter-writing and submission, click here.]

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