Council votes 5-0 for a rent-control ordinance

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield Township Council passed a rent-control ordinance Monday evening. The vote was 5-0. Councilmen Elias Chalet and Carlos Bernard were absent. The ordinance amends the current ordinance. Landlord and tenant representatives saw it as a step in the right direction.

Landlords will now be able to increase rents in one of two ways: either with an annual increase up to 3 percent; or basing the increase on the difference in the consumer price index three months before a lease ends and three months before a new lease begins, whichever is greater, but not to exceed 5 percent. Tenants under a previous rent ordinance would be exempt. The current rent ordinance permits increases of 3 1/2 percent.

When a tenant moves out, the new ordinance permits a rent increase. This is known as vacancy decontrol. But the ordinance sets a limit on increases. The current rent-control ordinance allows landlords to set their own increases.
There will be a rent leveling board of five members. The current ordinance permitted three.

In a telephone interview, Ron Simoncini, a landlord representative, said the council came up with an ordinance that does not hurt landlords too much and provides tenants with predictable rents.

“I’m not happy with it but it’s not worth fighting over,” he said. “The tension in the ordinance is muted by vacancy decontrol and the annual increase is realistic.”

Stephen St. Hilaire, a former affordable housing attorney, said the ordinance was a beginning but he was not completely satisfied.

“With vacancy decontrol there are important issues,” he said. “When you have rents going up, it limits the mobility of people of low-income.”

Trish Comstock, the president of the Bloomfield Tenants Association, called the amendment “a token ordinance.”

“It helps,” she said, “but it doesn’t have some form of vacancy decontrol.”