Battle Over Rent Control Continues In North Jersey Town

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The saga of Montclair’s rent control law has taken another turn, and it may be local voters who get to write the final chapter of the story.

On Tuesday, the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division delivered an opinion on a long-running dispute between municipal officials and the Montclair Property Owners Association (MPOA), a group of landlords and advocates opposed to the law.

The court decision paves the way for a referendum question that could squash – or preserve – the town’s ordinance in a special election in 2022.

• Read More: Fate Of Montclair's Rent Control Law In Hands Of Appellate Court
• Read More: Rent Control In Montclair: Critics Try To Bring Issue To Voters

The Montclair Township Council passed the law in April 2020. It limits annual rent increases in the township to 2.5 percent for seniors and 4.25 percent for other tenants, with some exceptions. Read the ordinance here.

A court injunction has kept the ordinance from going into effect. Meanwhile, the Township Council imposed a freeze on rent hikes to help protect tenants during the pandemic.

Some Montclair residents, including mayor Sean Spiller, have claimed the ordinance is a long overdue victory for people who are at the mercy of landlords seeking to raise their rents. But critics, including the MPOA, have argued the law was pushed through during the coronavirus crisis and will impact property taxes paid by single-family homeowners.

Read more about the MPOA's position on the law here.

The MPOA tried to place the law before voters in a town-wide referendum last year, but ran into a brick wall when the municipal clerk ruled that some of the 1,020 required signatures they gathered via an online petition were invalid.

But on Tuesday, the appellate court panel affirmed the trial judge's determination that the clerk had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously,” and should have phoned individual signers for confirmation of their signatures.

The judges wrote:

“In this appeal, we consider a municipal clerk's determination that plaintiffs' petition for a referendum on a rent-regulation ordinance lacked sufficient signatures; the clerk's decision resulted from her discerning of differences between some of the petition's e-signatures and the corresponding voters' pen-and-ink signatures on the voter rolls. We affirm the trial judge's determination that the clerk acted arbitrarily and capriciously. Among other things, we conclude it was unreasonable, because of the limiting circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the governor's emergency order precluding door-to-door solicitations, for the clerk not to reach out and provide voters with an opportunity to cure the alleged uncertain signatures before attempting to disenfranchise them from the referendum process.”

The judges noted that they “appreciate the circumstances in which the clerk found herself in attempting to execute what she perceived to be her statutory obligation” – especially amid a global pandemic.

The appellate panel added:

“We note as well these same difficulties presented challenges for the parties and the trial court; for example, while plaintiffs were able to muster three certifications of voters whose signatures were rejected by the clerk, they were limited to relying on emails received from other voters in attempting to demonstrate the petition was supported by a sufficient number of voters. We deem it advisable now that there is greater physical accessibility to courts and to the affected voters, that the trial judge schedule an evidentiary hearing and engage in such fact-finding as may be necessary to ensure certainty about the number of voters who, by e-signing, intended to support the petition.”

Charles Gormally of Brach Eichler in Roseland, the attorney for the committee of petitioners that sponsored the referendum, said that if Montclair town officials insist on proceeding with an evidentiary hearing, the committee is ready.

“Because the clerk did not follow the guidance directing the clerk to contact the signers before rejecting their signatures, the committee of petitioners was found to be only 18 votes short of the requirement,” Gormally said. “However, the appellate court made it clear that the clerk’s action was improper and led to the rejection of more than 400 signatures that should have been counted.”

TOOM: 'A NO-HOLDS-BARRED TIME FOR LANDLORDS'

The Tenants Organization of Montclair (TOOM), which has been an ardent supporter of the rent control law, issued a statement about the appellate court ruling, writing that its members are “deeply disappointed” with the decision.

“This means our very long, twisty-turny journey will go on a little longer,” the group wrote. “There will be a vote of the people of Montclair in early 2022, which TOOM fully believes will finally bring protection to renters, moderate limits on rent hikes, and stability to our town.”

The group continued:

“Gentrification has been on a rampage. It has seriously disrupted our distinct and diverse community. That is why our coalition of tenants, homeowners, clergy, senior citizens and the NAACP came together to push for passage of a rent leveling ordinance in the first place … While the ordinance has been on hold due to various legal challenges from a group of landlords called the Montclair Property Owners Association, the Township Council imposed a freeze on rent hikes to help protect tenants during the pandemic. We fear what will occur between expiration of the pandemic-related freeze on rent hikes, currently set for Dec. 31, and the referendum vote on rent control, which cannot be scheduled before ‘early next year,’ according to the town attorney.”

TOOM advocates added:

“This will be a no-holds-barred time for landlords who may have suffered diminished profit during the pandemic. We at TOOM well know there are solid, upstanding landlords who charge reasonable rents and want to keep their buildings stable. We also well know another type of landlord who maintains tunnel vision on maximizing profit, no matter what. We constantly hear from neighbors in our community about violations of existing state law protecting tenants, which is sparsely enforced in this community. Montclair has failed to protect tenants in the nearly 150 years since its founding. The time is now.”

MONTCLAIR COUNCILMAN: ‘SAFEGUARDING DEMOCRATIC NORMS’

After the appellate court released its decision, Montclair Councilman Peter Yacobellis said that the case shows an evolving need to protect democracy – regardless of where you fall on the rent control issue.

“Today the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey affirmed that as a government we should make every effort, especially when there is a public health emergency, to safeguard democratic norms including petitioning,” Yacobellis said.

“Regardless if you are for or against this version of rent control that will now likely end up on the ballot in early 2022, the last few years have taught us how important it is to protect the rights of the people to participate in their democracy, whether that is voting, petitioning or simply sharing their opinions,” he stated.

The councilman added:

“Just in the last two years, our council meetings have gone virtual, forcing people to have to deal with a clunky system in order to have their voices heard. Our voting has volleyed from all in person to all mail to the most recent hybrid approach, confusing voters and resulting in many votes not being counted, including in our 2020 municipal election. And having been someone who had to gather petition signatures in a pandemic to get on the ballot in the first place, I know firsthand how cumbersome that particular process is. All around, I think the pandemic demands that we be more flexible and accommodating. In fact, now the court has said as much. In my view, that's a good and healthy thing for our local democracy.”

MPOA DIRECTOR: 'THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL'

Ron Simoncini, executive director of the MPOA, also weighed in about the appellate court decision on Tuesday.

Simoncini wrote:

“If its past obstruction and politicking in this matter is any indication, we expect that Montclair officials will continue their attempts to disrupt the referendum process. But the writing is on the wall: this matter is headed for the ballot and the voters will have a chance to decide.”

Simoncini continued:

“The fact remains that this ordinance should have been properly vetted from the outset, but instead it was jammed through without getting input from all of the stakeholders. The property owners provided input on the ordinance and requested practical amendments designed to make it constitutionally enforceable and reduced the negative impacts to all parties while maintaining all the rights and protections the ordinance sought for existing residents of Montclair. The mayor and council’s refusal to enter into a good faith dialogue about the requested changes is an indication of the administration’s unwillingness to put equitable policy in front of special interest politics.”

“The property owners recognize that rent control can provide a measure of protection to tenants and are in agreement that protections should be considered,” Simoncini added. “But absent a sincere dialogue on the impacts and unintended consequences – including the exorbitant costs of administering it – we have no choice but to seek a repeal of this ordinance, and we do so not only in our own interest, but because this ordinance will harm all the residents of Montclair.”

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