Rent Leveling Board
The Rent Leveling Board of Atlantic Highlands will make a strong recommendation that rent control be reinstated in the borough after a three hour long, search and study intensive session at Borough Hall yesterday afternoon.
Action was taken by the four member Board although it still falls short of being an official board, lacking a reorganization meeting, or an appointed or elected secretary to take minutes of the meeting.
Through no fault of their own, the four members, all present for the mind and idea-sharing session, are on a Rent Control Board whose establishing ordinance, adopted in 2016, mandates “the board SHALL consist of five members…” Apparently, a fifth member has never been named by the current governing body, a recommendation the four members are making to council immediately.
Since Wednesday’s meeting was the first meeting of the four named persons, they considered it an organization meeting and James Krauss conducted the meeting and took the notes to compile minutes, all with the support and recommendation of the three members present with him, Brenda Hotchkiss, Laura Hesse and Tara Shah.
The board met in special session to review the current Rent Leveling Board ordinance and recommended changes to the governing body.
Chief among the changes, all agreed on unanimously, is a return of a rent control code for all residential property leasers with three or more units in a mixed use property or five or more units for rent in a non-mixed use property. Currently, there is no rent control for buildings opened for rentals after June 30, 2016.
Hesse, who is a landlord filling the ordinance requirement that one board member must be a landlord of a multiple dwelling unit and live in the borough, was strongly in favor of rent control for property owners like herself, saying simply “My family has been in this borough for generations, I want what is best for the residents of the borough. I work hard to be a fair landlord and do not believe in gouging any tenant or overcharging anyone.”
Both Hotchkiss and Shah are tenants, both in residences within multiple units, and Krauss is a property owner in the borough.
Once all the information gathered at the meeting for this and other recommendations of the board is compiled, the board will hold another meeting November 2 at 4p.m. to review the compilation and make the recommendation to the governing body.
Conceivably, the current governing body would not have sufficient time to review and act on the recommendations before their term expires December 31. In all likelihood, the new council would review the recommendations of the board and refer their approved version to either the borough or a special attorney to write an ordinance.
That proposed ordinance would then be introduced at a Council meeting in early 2024, and a public hearing would be held before it becomes final. Krauss estimated the matter would most likely not be introduced until February or March of next year under the new Mayor and Council.
Taking the current ordinance apart line by line, the hard working members of the Rent Leveling Board traced its history and amendments to prior ordinances it supersedes dating to 1996. Members also introduced themselves to residents present at the afternoon meeting and gave brief resumes of their backgrounds that qualify them for membership on the board.
Among recommendations the Rent Leveling Board is making to the present code, are the inclusion of the rule that all board members be borough residents, that the next member appointed to complete the five member mandate shall be a property owner not a tenant or landlord, and that the current rent control code affect owners with five or more apartments in a residential building and three or more apartments in a mixed use building, regardless of the number of businesses in the commercial portion of the property.
The Rent Leveling Board agreed to delve deeper and provide more research before making any recommendations on a three per cent ceiling on rent increases and agreed to continue the law that prohibits any rent increase while violations are reported and not corrected. Members also agreed with the current regulations on two-year leases and the landlord’s right to increase the rent the second year of the lease.
