Reposting this since it is 100% accurate. What do you expect w/ someone w/ a degree in communism, aka labor studies.

What, you have a problem w/ being called a communist? How about socialist? Would you prefer I call you that? You certainly don't believe in the free market or property rights. And considering your attempts to censor me by flagging my posts, you don't at all believe in freedom of expression.

I think you meant that socialist crap for Indiecom & not me!

Yes, meant for the rent control queen and not for a free-marketeer.

They'd have been happy w/ the law as it was changed. You have a choice, vote for repealing the change to rent control and risk a massive tax hike b/c of that class action suit against the city by landlords or vote against the ballot initiative and preserve rent control as is and squash that class action suit. I'll be voting no on the ballot initiative though personally I wouldn't mind the class action suit going forward b/c looks like the city is toast and the fallout from the city losing would probably mean a complete end to rent control in town.

And the impetus behind this little rent control mess was a landlord getting hosed by the city, going to court and getting the administration of the rent control law deemed unconstitutional. The landlords collectively said "damn, if they won, then so can I", got certified as a class and filed a class action suit.

There is absolutely not one grain of logic or reason to your argument for rent control. It boils down to "I have it and I want to keep it" for you. I find this type of rationale disingenuous. The amount of my tax dollars you're spending to defend "your right" to live off of other people's hard work is appalling. If you can't afford to live in a market rate rental in Hoboken - get out. If you can afford it, then why cry about rent control?

Disgusting, absolutely and positively disgusting.

If you had given me any indication that you could make a rationale decision or conclusion, your opinion would matter to me. But since you've proven time and again that you only care about getting yours, it doesn't.

To that end, I'm confident that RR and I pay more in taxes monthly than you do yearly to this city. Maybe you'd care about the legal bills you and your ilk run up if you actually paid into the system.

Her entire rental building pays a few grand less than most 2 BR condos. She barely pays enough in taxes to justify having a building there. Normally I don't like eminent domain to improve the tax base but for her I'd make an exception.

No, that's not the logical conclusion from what I stated. I stated that if you paid into the system the way the rest of us do, you'd be less inclined to sue the city to keep your backward policy intact. Furthermore, the policy inflates the prices of other rentals as it artificially creates a shortage. But it's all good, indie, keep getting yours. Luckily, people who like rent control are OLD and a DYING BREED. Soon enough the market will be freed from the chains of rent control.

I have yet to see one valid argument for rent control.

"Population diversity" doesn't work - we have low income/affordable housing for those who need a hand (another policy I disagree with)

"Artistic community" -um, what arts are you participating in?

"Fair" - No, it's not fair to anyone. You either are getting something for cheap so you're making out in the deal or you're a landlord getting screwed out of making the most money possible in rent. It's a zero sum gain, sure, but it's ridiculous.

Below market rent in and of itself is a windfall. If you are against windfalls, you should be against artificially below market rental rates.

BTW, not entirely sure I am surprised a property owner who owns his own home is in favor of rent control. The artificial housing shortage caused by rent control in the NYC area is one of the top reason housing like your condo or town home is so valuable. So you are "talking your book" in a sense......lol. We get rid of rent control, your property won't appreciate in value quite so fast in the future.

When you make an investment, sometimes you get lucky and get a windfall. Sometimes you lose out and don't. I don't feel bad for anyone who invests time/money into a property that gets a windfall. And I do not own any rental properties in town, nor will I.

Luck has little to do with the windfall - it is all lobbying. A little investment with the politicians and all of a sudden they are concerned about the poor, down-trodden landlords, yearning to be free.

Owl, you haven't seen a valid argument for rent control. I haven't seen a valid argument for decontrol. Don't want to own rental property in rent controlled Hoboken? Then don't buy it. Want to jack up your rents and force your long term tenant to move out? Buy property somewhere else.

The rational arguments against rent control are as follows:
1. The artificial reduction of market rate properties drives up the price of the now limited available market rate properties.
2. The buildings under rent control pay significantly less in taxes than similar properties (meaning a brownstone not under rent control pays upwards of $15-20K a year in taxes, but a rent controlled building pays about 1/3 of that). City collects less from them so owners in non-rent controlled buildings have to make up the difference.
3. The artificially low price gives people no incentive to leave a unit and causes people like SS1959 to feel entitled to payouts when a building they've rented in for 20 years changes ownership.
4. All risk is taken by the people who BUY the property. No risk is taken in renting. To take away any reward situation for the BUYER is an issue. To reduce the number of market rate apartments on the market negatively affects every potential renter in town.

Those are very legit reasons to get rid of it, particularly the first 3 (unless you believe in capitalism and the American dream, then #4 is a good reason too).

Added bonus- people like indiecom would probably leave town.

Whoever called these people moochers was right. Those who benefit from rent control are moochers.

#2 makes sense to me. #1, #3 and #4, not so much.

#1, Did rents get any more reasonable as thousands of new units came online in the 90's and 00's? Did rents get any more reasonable when Applied decontrolled many of their units? Not so I could see. My guess is that rent control has very little impact on rents in this one square mile city.

#3, incentive to leave their homes? Huh? Is that supposed to be a GOOD thing?

#4, sure the owner takes the risk, but the risk is priced into the property. why would you buy the property if the numbers don't work? I don't think the American Dream involves kicking long term tenants to the curb so you can convert to luxury condos.

Not so long ago, owners did some pretty terrible things to evict tenants in Hoboken and history does tend to repeat itself.

Ken, if rent control is such a great thing, why is new construction not covered? Did you ever think that even a politician who doesn't want to annoy people in rent control already by repealing it understands it is by far the dumbest economic & development policy a city could pursue?

BTW, rental rates never went down b/c vacancy rates in Manhattan were rediculously low. No empty units, no reason to cut rates. As for the rest of your rebuttal on luxury condos, etc.., you do realize the only reason people want to do that is b/c rent control is way below market, right?

For the reasons I stated above, I feel that the policy decision should be to cut it.

The reason to get rid of it is it actually does the opposite of it's intended purpose. Rent control encourages landowners to build everything but affordable rental housing making affordable rental housing more scarce. That rent control created scarcity makes housing less affordable. So why do we keep it? Because it people like Indiecom will vote against anyone who say they will do what makes sense and threatens to take away their windfall.

If anyone thinks I am making this up, go compare rental and vacancy rates in Manhattan for rental housing vs. commercial housing. Then go compare that to the national rates. Guess where rental housing rates went and where vacancy rates went in Manhattan during the recession. Guess where it was everywhere else in the nation. Guess what developers have consistently not built in Manhattan over the last few decades that they built all over the rest of the country. And then go look at why half the people in this town live here and commute into NYC, what do you think that does to the cost of housing here. Now go google what economists think on the issue of rent control. These typically liberal minded academics are not a fan of rent control at all. That might be why rent control is the stereotypical case used in almost every economics class of how price controls lead to shortages and drive up prices. But nobody in rent control will admit to themselves being the reason why housing is so expensive here.

There is nothing diverse about white yuppies. If they want diversity, tell them to put in some requirement that it promote diversity. That requirement should exclude white yuppies w/ graduate degrees that work in the financial services sector since they are over-represented in town.

Affordable housing allows for diversity of population. There seems to be a lot of that, as we have public housing and senior housing in town - in fact, that type of housing brings us politicians such as Tim O, Mike Russo, Theresa Castellano & Beth Mason. I'm failing to see how this is a positive.

If rent control is to help keep the artists here, I ask anyone making that argument to a- explain to me why they aren't falling into the affordable housing category & b - where are they? I haven't known of any artists in any medium in Hoboken for quite some time.

So that brings me back to - what does Indiecom or SS1959 add to the community that so requires us to have rent control? My guess is both can afford market rate housing. So ?

"Affordable housing allows for diversity of population"

At least its supposed to. In Marine View and Church Towers the only non-white faces are people with realy good tans

@Hoboken1653- True. But how does Rent Control make sure we have people of different ethnic backgrounds?

Those of us who have to make enough money to pay our market rate rent (or mortgage) generally can't get to council meetings by 7 to sign up to speak. It's infuriating that loudmouth greedy mooching idiots get all the air time. It's a catch-22. They don't need to make much $$ so they can leave their jobs and perpetuate this rent control b.s.

Madison - I assume if you think the government should not be in the business of using private property to make public policy that you oppose the home mortgage deduction. How about zoning ordinances? Do you oppose those? Like rent control zoning restricts what you can do with your property to achieve a public policy goal so I assume you oppose all zoning restrictions as well. BTW, I'm not saying rent control is good or bad public policy, only that the assertion that government shouldn't ever use private property to achieve public policy goals is a convenient oversimplification that simply doesn't reflect the real world. Also, the assertion that most people who have vacation homes live in subsidized housing is both false and silly. There surely are people who live in subsidized housing who own vacation homes but they represent a small fraction of the people in subsidized housing, and a miniscule fraction of people who own vacation homes overall. This is a serious policy issue that deserves serious thoughtful discussion.

In my dream of means-testing, if you own a shore house, you're out of subsidized housing. Simple cause and effect law. Kind of like if you turn on your wipers, you have to turn on your headlights.

Actually, some of the laws started at the beginning of WWII b/c of a lack of construction materials and manpower for construction and a huge influx of workers needing housing who moved to cities to work at factories and other jobs created to help w/ the war effort. The current rent control regulations in NYC started in 1943. Since '43, rent control was expanded in NYC and the collective group of rental regulations now cover 2/3 of all rental units in NYC according to the State of NY. Right now units become deregulated over in NYC after rent hits a certain $ threshold but tenant advocates are trying to change that and make rent control as permanent as possible over there. Past time to repeal these anachronistic laws.

didn't realize it started as early as '43....