Eatontown council approves rent control
Tenants cheer as council sets yearly rent hike ceiling
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

Eatontown

EATONTOWN - For $1,600 a month, you might be able to rent a three-bedroom apartment in Manhattan ... or Eatontown.

Borough officials, cognizant of skyrocketing rents in the town's numerous garden apartment complexes and its three mobile home parks, have stepped in to ensure that tenants, who account for close to 50 percent of Eatontown's population, are protected against unreasonable rent hikes.

What officials saw as procrastination by landlords and owners to negotiate renewal of Eatontown's existing four-year rent stabilization contract, which expired this month, prompted the Borough Council to unanimously adopt an ordinance instituting rent control within the town's borders.

About 50 tenants came out for the council's Sept. 27 public hearing on the ordinance, which essentially modifies an existing one that first established rent stabilization in 1981.

Before tenants could cheer the council's decision to cap the yearly rent increases at 3 percent of the average consumer price index (CPI) for the New York-East New Jersey metropolitan region, they first had to hear two attorneys representing their landlords in an attempt to delay the decision on the ordinance.

Both attorneys, Christopher Hanlon of Freehold and Michael DuPont of Red Bank, acknowledged their clients brought them on board only five days before the public hearing.

Nonetheless, both Hanlon, representing about four of the property owners, and DuPont, speaking for the owners of Circle Trailer Park, asked the council to table the ordinance until their clients could meet with the borough and its Tenants Rights Committee to negotiate a new four-year agreement.

Hanlon requested a 90-day contract extension and DuPont asked for a 30-day extension.

Both attorneys recommended that the terms of the expired contract continue until all parties - landlords, tenant representatives and the borough - reached an agreement.

The council refused to yield to their requests.

According to Borough Attorney Gene Anthony, negotiations between the landlords' representative, the borough and its tenants' group usually begin six to eight months before the expiration date.

However, after the landlords' most recent negotiator retired from the rental business, they could not reach an accord on who should represent their interests, Anthony said.

"It took a long time to decide who should negotiate for the landlords," Anthony said. "The owners of the mobile home parks wanted their own negotiator."

Last month the owners of both apartment complexes and mobile home parks selected Christopher Knight, a manager at the Stony Hill and Country Club apartment complexes, to do their negotiating.

Knight, employed by one of Hanlon's clients, Campson Properties, owner of both the Stony Hill and Country Club complexes, started coming to negotiations in early September, Anthony said.

In the meantime, last Saturday's contract expiration date was fast approaching.

To create a safety net for the tenants, Anthony drafted the ordinance and suggested the council adopt the measure to prohibit landlords from raising rents or passing on charges after the contract lapsed.

The rent control ordinance is based on one enacted in Red Bank and later upheld in the courts, said Anthony, who added that he wrote that borough's law in the 1980s.

Should a new agreement be reached by all parties at a later date, the council could rescind the ordinance and proceed with that contract instead, Anthony said.

"There is a need for some sort of rent stabilization, whichever one you choose," Anthony told the council.

Councilman Charles DaVis, who chairs the Tenants Rights Committee, indicated that should the landlords agree to fair negotiations, the rent control ordinance could be voided.

"I don't see why we would not rescind in that case," DaVis said. "My concern is continuation of protection for the tenants."

In asking the council to postpone its vote, Hanlon pledged that his clients would not take advantage of a lapsed contract by imposing higher rents or other fees.

"I ask that you continue the [expiring] agreement for 90 days so that we can continue to negotiate in good faith," said Hanlon, who also represents United Mobile Homes, owner of the Woodlawn Mobile Park, Westminster Properties and Victoria/Wedgewood Properties, all owners of apartment buildings.

Parts of the borough's ordinance might be ruled unconstitutional by the courts because landlords, especially those who own mobile home parks, would not be allowed to pass on increased property taxes, Hanlon said.

He also dismissed arguments by Anthony and Mayor Gerald Tarantolo that the Red Bank ordinance used as a template would stand in Eatontown.

"That may be okay in Red Bank, but they don't have mobile parks," Hanlon said.

Rent control would also prohibit landlords from passing through the costs of capital improvements such as road repairs, Hanlon said.

Anthony, however, disagreed and reiterated that the ordinance is based on the region's CPI and that other municipalities have successfully used the same criteria in legislating rent control.

"The CPI fluctuates between 3 and 4 percent," Anthony said. "The courts have determined that the CPI is a fair method to [be used by] the landlords."

Meanwhile, DuPont told the council that the family who owns the Circle Trailer Park would not request rent increases if a 30-day extension was granted.

Council President Theodore F. Lewis Jr. told Hanlon and DuPont that he would have preferred to negotiate an agreement, but because the landlords did not choose a negotiator until last month, the council had to act immediately.

"[The landlords] knew that the end of the contract was coming," said Lewis.

Councilwoman Joyce Englehart doubted the landlords' sincerity in trying to negotiate now.

"If they were acting in good faith, they would have acted before," Englehart said. "I see a lot of bad faith here."

The rent control ordinance would be stronger than the contract because it would be the law, said Kevin Kelly, a member of the Tenants Rights Committee.

"If you can't enforce something, why have it?" asked Kelly, a Woodlawn Mobile Park resident. "Let's do the ordinance."

Though they own their mobile units, residents moving into Woodlawn must now pay $590 monthly land rent, Kelly said.

Apartment tenants are not immune either, Kelly said.

"A lady at the [Tenants Rights] meeting the other night said she pays $1,600 for a three-bedroom apartment," Kelly said. "This is Eatontown, not Manhattan!"

The regional CPI is published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Rent control can also help head off a high turnover of tenants who will leave their units if rents go beyond what they can afford, Anthony has said.