N.J. city drops rule limiting rent increases to $20 a year

Elizabeth’s city council voted last week to remove a policy that placed a $20 cap on annual rent increases that many landlords and local officials said was outdated.

However, the city council left rent control rules in place that will limit most rent increases in Elizabeth to 3% per year, officials said.

Under the previous policy put in place decades ago, landlords could only raise rents 3% or $20 each year, whichever was less. That meant nearly all rent increases were capped at $20 per year.

Protesters pressured council members for more than a month to keep the $20 cap and protect tenants’ bills from increasing at a rapid pace. But the majority of city council members voted to remove the $20 cap at last Tuesday’s city council meeting.

Elizabeth Councilman Manny Grova Jr. said most city council members felt the $20 cap was “outdated.”

“The ordinance for the $20 cap was put in place back in the 1980s,” Grova Jr. said last week. “At that time, rents in Elizabeth were $600, $700. So it made sense. Now, the average rent in Elizabeth is $1,500, so $20 is not big.”

Gerardo Benavides of Make the Road Action New Jersey, an advocacy group for immigrants and working-class people, said earlier this month that removing the $20 ceiling on rent increases “could be incredibly dire” for many renters.

“It could be the difference between being able to pay rent or being able to pay groceries,” Benavides said.

New Jersey is the seventh most expensive state to rent, according to a July report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a nonprofit group.

The average person in Union County, where Elizabeth is located, would need to make $59,160 to afford a two-bedroom apartment. But the median salary in the county is only $55,816, according to the report’s analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The council’s decision to remove the $20 cap “shows how the city protects developers rather than tenants who are struggling to make ends meet,” said Juana Almonte, an Elizabeth tenant and member of Make the Road Action New Jersey, in a statement. “Our city must protect working class families.”

Tenants who came to the city council meetings to voice concerns about their rent should be directed to Elizabeth’s fair rental housing board, said Grova, the city councilman. Some tenants said their landlords were already raising rents each year beyond the $20 limit, despite the rent control rules.

“I made very clear, (if) there’s a landlord that’s violating the rules, they should take them to court,” Grova said. “They should seek legal advice.”

David Brogan of the New Jersey Apartment Association, a nonprofit group that represents landlords, said last week that Elizabeth’s $20 cap on rent increases was “arbitrary.” Eliminating the policy would be a “positive step” toward recognizing higher costs for housing providers, he said.

Brogan said his organization opposes rent control “in any form.”

“It is a failed policy that reduces the supply of rental housing, leads to lower housing quality for existing tenants, and higher property taxes for homeowners,” Brogan said.

Diego Bartesaghi, a communications manager from Make the Road Action New Jersey, said his group will keep pushing for limits on rent increases.

“We will continue fighting to have more protections for the thousands of tenants struggling to make ends meet,” he said.

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Camille Furst may be reached at cfurst@njadvancemedia.com.