A landlord-led referendum proposal to change Hoboken’s rent control laws was given a lifeline when the city clerk determined the petition signature requirement is hundreds lower than initially announced.
The petition by the Mile Square Taxpayers Association (MTSA), which was initially rejected last week for not having signatures and is in the process of being cured, now needs only 894 valid signatures to move forward — compared to the 1,356 the city requested at the outset, City Clerk James Farina said in letter Friday.
This puts the petition by the landlord-interest group much closer to potentially being approved, depending on the results of the curing process; the clerk’s office ruled last week that 802 of the 2,162 signatures were valid, leaving now only 92 signatures needed to progress the referendum.
The proposed referendum seeks to have voters decide on whether the rent control law should allow landlords to option to raise the rent of a rent-controlled unit as much as they want when a tenant moves out, in exchange for a $2,500 contribution to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
The curing deadline for the petition is June 10. Ron Simoncini, the executive director of the MSTA, said in a statement that “we expect to provide a sufficient cure on the original time frame” and that “we are hopeful that litigation will not be required, but we have prepared for it.”
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who opposes the MSTA’s referendum, said that “whatever the number of signatures is, if the lobbyist-fueled referendum that attempts to gut rent control and price out residents comes to the ballot, I am confident voters will overwhelmingly reject it.”
