ASBURY PARK PROPERTY OWNERS COALITION

Petitioners’ Rent Control: A Total Disaster for Asbury Park

The quality of housing stock will plummet as property owners are forced to reduce maintenance

When long-tenancies vacate apartments, apartments are often substantially renovated and new tenants negotiate rents for those apartments. Without the prospect of rent increases to cover the cost of improvements, these units will be rented as-is, reducing the choices of incoming renters to only have brand new or aged apartments to choose from. The lack of vacancy decontrol will prevent needed improvements to the City’s aging housing stock. It forces all tenants to accept compromised reinvestment and maintenance when there has not even been a market study to determine how many tenants have rent insecurity.

The City’s already bloated budget will increase by $200,000 or more

The Ordinance bridges into the operations of the Building Department as a means of punishing property owners for issues that are separately and adequately regulated. This only adds cost and delays to Departments that are running on threadbare budgets; and it adds an entirely new governmental department whose staffing and legal fees will be at least $200,000 per year.

Homeowners Will Pay More Taxes

Transfer of Tax Burden to Single Family Homeowners. Study after study has demonstrated that the proven effect of rent control laws is to transfer property tax burdens from multi-family to single-family homeowners.

Visitors and tourists will be discouraged from coming to our City

More regulation will discourage investment in Asbury Park. Developers will look elsewhere to build tourism focused properties. As these other properties are established outside of Asbury Park, potential visitors will spend their tourism dollars elsewhere, effectively cutting off a vital economic source to the community.

ALL businesses will suffer

Asbury Park’s economy depends on tourism. These visitors are vital to the health of small businesses. If developers and property owners are discouraged from investing in the town because of excessive regulation – those investors will develop in other Jersey Shore locations, luring tourists away from Asbury Park, and along with it, the money they would have spent at Asbury Park’s small businesses.

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PRESS RELEASES

RENT CONTROL POSITION PAPER RELEASED BY ASBURY PARK PROPERTY OWNERS COALITION

ASBURY PARK, N.J. DECEMBER 15, 2020 – The Asbury Park Property Owners Coalition [APPOC] released a position paper today on the proposed rent control ordinance for Asbury Park and urged the Council to reject it and conduct hearings on solutions to provide affordable housing to…

Analysis of Petitioners’ Proposed Rent Control Ordinance in Asbury Park

Asbury Park has made the prescient judgment over the years on many occasions to avoid rent control. With strong economic growth and a focus on new, some of the existing residents feel threatened. Tenant advocates have mistakenly attempted to equate rent control with protecting from gentrification and assuring affordability, but facts…

OPEN LETTER: ASBURY PARK PROPERTY OWNERS COALITION REGARDING
RENT CONTROL

ASBURY PARK, N.J., JANUARY 21, 2021 – Over the past several weeks, the homeowners, tenants and Stakeholders in Asbury Park have expressed their concerns and objections to the proposed Rent Control Ordinance which unless withdrawn by the sponsors will now be subject to a public vote. While…

The Petitioners’ Proposed Ordinance is Awful Legislation

The proposed ordinance is incredibly poorly conceived and drafted, clearly an unsophisticated law that is unworkable and inconsistent with its own motivations.

With an eviction moratorium and other emergency measures related to COVID-19 currently in place, no one should be making any long-term housing policy issues as they are not currently needed, and due to COVID-19, the current economic state of the housing market, it is unlikely that there will be rent pressures for some time. This is exactly the wrong time to consider an ordinance like this. Plus, the referendum platform denies a place for dialogue with elected officials and other stakeholder, which is bad public policy.

It fails to address the differences

Improperly Denies Exemptions Under State Law. New construction developers who did not file exemptions from rent control, guaranteed under state law, have no ability to secure their exempt status, as there was no rent control when they built their buildings.

Fails to provide any help for tenants in Need

Rent Controls Forces Out Low-Income Earners. That rent control is consumer protection legislation, not a source of affordable housing. Rent control is proven to shut out people in need of subsidies and instead deliver benefits to higher earning households.

Fails to provide any affordable housing

Unintended Consequences that Reduce Affordable Housing Supply. Even though condo units are covered under the proposed Ordinance, it still encourages conversion to condominium and new construction of condominiums, effectively reducing the supply for affordable rentals.

Only New, High-Income Residents Will Benefit

The beneficiaries of this law will be new residents to Asbury Park who will gain the benefit of a discounted rent despite the fact that landlords will not select tenants who are truly in need of a discount, because those tenants will not qualify to the income standards for the housing.

Will decimate property values and the City’s primary source of Revenue

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The value of your home will drop and your taxes will skyrocket

Disingenuous political motives are the reason this has occurred

An Ordinance about Political Power, Not Housing Fairness. The proponents of this Ordinance have political aspirations that they are hoping to achieve through creating a power base among tenants. But their legislation is so poorly crafted, not only does it reveal their true motivations, it also reveals their lack of fitness to represent the general interests of the municipality, as they would compromise the stability of Asbury Park for their own political ambitions.

The Political Committee Proposing Rent Control Never Studied Rent Control’s Impacts

Tenant advocates have mistakenly attempted to equate rent control with protecting from gentrification and assuring affordability, but history and academic studies always conclude that just the opposite happens. There is no quantitative economic or academic study that shows rent control secures affordable housing for those who need it. The lack of vacancy decontrol will prevent needed improvements to the City’s aging housing stock. It forces all tenants to accept compromised reinvestment and maintenance when there has not even been a market study to determine how many tenants have rent insecurity.

The Political Committee members are politically motivated

“Numerous Asbury Park residents felt it was time to make sure that those who suffered through the bad times don’t get pushed out during the City’s revival. We want to live in a town where economic justice is front and center … While racial segregation was made illegal, economic segregation has kept our beaches and city segregated by race and class. We believe that providing affordable housing all over our city would help end this de facto segregation.”

http://asburyparksun.com/letter-asbury-park-affordable-housing-coalition/

PETITIONERS’ PROPOSED ORDINANCE HERE:

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The Petitioners’ Rent Control Ordinance will Decimate the City. There are Better Alternatives.