Council’s new rent cap won’t be enough to protect Asbury Park tenants
Tags: Tenant Rights, Asbury Park, Rent Control, New Jersey, Affordable Housing

Council’s new rent cap won’t be enough to protect Asbury Park tenants cassady Apr 8·4 min read

Facing roaches, rats, and rent spikes, Asbury Park renters continue to come last on the city’s list of priorities. On April 20, residents will have a chance to change that.

That’s how the Asbury Park Affordable Housing Coalition (APAHC) came together, a group of tenants and homeless members of the Asbury Park community fighting for affordable, safe, and secure housing for all.

APAHC organizer Tracy Rodgers speaks to the sentiment of Asbury residents: “people have come out in the community voicing the same concerns about an integrated city, an affordable city, a walkable city. All these things can be done, but the city council did not do that.”

By Jackie on Flickr (2006). Graffiti opinion on the side of the historic casino during its demolition.

Over the past twenty years, lots of renters have been pushed out of the city, displaced by rising rents, exclusionary zoning, rapid development, and other symptoms of gentrification. Aside from skyrocketing prices, a major concern of local families comes from their living conditions. Neglected units are ripe with health and safety hazards.

In 2016, a unit severely infested with roaches led the tenant to spray large amounts of insecticide, which resulted in an explosion and the closing-down of the apartments. More problems in New Jersey rental housing are documented in the Asbury Park Press’s award-winning five-part exposé “Renter Hell”. The piece displays the mechanisms that enable New Jersey’s persistent lack of housing affordability and adequacy.

In Asbury and many other cities, safety inspections and code enforcement are underperformed, while property owners are able to skirt legal accountability for the subsequent hazards. They do so by hiding their identities behind limited liability companies or LLCs — in October 2016, before the release of “Renter Hell,” at least seven LLCs failed to show up to Asbury Park’s housing court.

All of these problems are well-acknowledged, but action is rare. Over the past twenty years, it has become increasingly clear that community-based protections for tenants are needed.

On December ninth, with the support of 700 residents via petition, the APAHC proposed a rent stabilization ordinance which creates measures such as:

· Rent control — a cap on rent increases to reflect the CPI or 4%, whichever is lower.

· Rent stabilization board — a review board will be created to check appeals for additional rent increases, to consist of 4 tenants and 3 property owners.

· Remove vacancy decontrol — vacancy decontrol is the policy that would allow property owners to raise rents by any amount in the case of a tenancy change. This point in particular speaks to the necessity of a long-term solution; when prices can spike limitlessly, units are modernized and turned over to wealthier renters, replacing entire communities of working-class families. It provides just another incentive to push people out.

You can read the full ordinance here.

On December 22, the council rejected the ordinance 3–1 with one abstention. Due to state law, the ordinance goes to a referendum vote unless an agreement can be reached in the meantime. Hoping to appease all parties, the council put forth and unanimously adopted its own ordinance earlier this month. It’s essentially a watered-down version of what the APAHC proposed: single-family homes are unprotected, and vacancy decontrol is permitted; the rent stabilization board is left open to the control of property owners, with membership reduced to 2 tenants, 2 landlords, and 3 other mayor-approved persons; the rent cap increases at 3.5% or the CPI, whichever is higher.

Who benefits, then? Major gaps in protection leave tenants equally at risk, and these risks are only going to worsen. Since the pandemic, Jersey Shore housing prices are soaring while working class families are suffering the most. In the area, it isn’t common to find a home for under half a million. This primes us for exacerbated inequality and mass eviction among many risks as the world shifts back to a “new normal.”

The Asbury Park Property Owners Coalition (APPOC), the landlords’ lobbying group, recently released a statement which reduces the imbalance of power in the city as a case of “bruised egos,” the APAHC’s ordinance just aggressive move in a political game fueled by envy. The spirit of this thought is ugly, it rejects reality, and it reflects a desire to discredit the affordable housing coalition. The APAHC is comprised of people who’ve fought for a better Asbury Park for decades; the ordinance is just the next step, another step in the democratic process meant to grant people a voice in local government.

Not being in power doesn’t result in “bruised egos” — it exacerbates inequality, leaving the most vulnerable people without representation in local government. And that is what has allowed longtime residents to continue to suffer, even as the city basks in its revitalization.

“The reality of the thought is, there are two visions of this city that people see,” says Tracy Rodgers of the affordable housing coalition. “I’m fighting for everyone. I’m fighting for the people who have been there for years. This is about the people who have been pushed out, who made Asbury Park and who went along during the bad times, [who should] be able to be there during the good times.”

The referendum vote on the APAHC’s ordinance will proceed April 20th.

You can find the affordable housing coalition’s organizing work and relevant press on their website, apwantsrentcontrol.com.