Dear Editor:
I recently received a postcard from a group calling itself the Mile Square Taxpayers Association. The postcard asserts that rent control in town “raises property taxes.” Therefore, if I want lower taxes, I should write to my councilperson and ask him to “fix” rent control.
The association’s website notes that it’s “made up of Hoboken property owners.” In actuality, though, the association’s name as well as its stated purpose are misleading. For the group is largely comprised of landlords and real estate developers, whose purpose is not to “fix” rent control but to weaken it, so that tenants pay higher rents and guess who makes higher profits? Landlords.
The rent control laws in Hoboken might need to be clarified and simplified. But the association’s contention that rent control leads ineluctably to higher property taxes is unfounded. Recent research by unbiased entities, namely the states of Massachusetts and California, show that regulating rents does not affect a city’s tax base.
What rent control does do, however, is help a city maintain a residential base of middle and working class people. And maintaining that base is invaluable to a city’s social and economic fabric. It’s also fair. This kind of fair-thinking might not make sense to landlords, a group not known for its humane impulses, but I suspect it makes perfect sense to the tens of thousands of fair-minded residents who do not belong to the Mile Square Taxpayers Association.
I’d also like to tell the association’s members, whose names are curiously not listed on its website, that not everyone is consumed with a hatred of taxes. And that trying to weaken rent control by linking it to lower taxes is a cynical ruse – one easy to see through. That taxes in town are too high and services rendered to citizens too little is true. But that has nothing to do with rent control. It rather has everything to do with the history of corruption in Hoboken politics in general and in real estate development in particular. During the last Mayoral race, for instance, who did most of our landlords and developers support? The mendacious Peter Cammarano, who just pleaded guilty to taking illegal campaign contributions from a man posing as none other than a real estate developer.
Mercifully, though, we finally have a good mayor, Dawn Zimmer, and a slate of progressive councilpersons (Cunningham, Marsh, Lenz, Mello and Bhalla) who are working hard to improve city services.
I’ll end by apprising members of the Mile Square Taxpayers Association that, at their request, I did write to my councilperson. I asked him to clarify and strengthen our rent control laws so that our tenants – in these uncertain economic times – are not made vulnerable to the cruel vagaries of an unregulated rental market.
Robert Florida
Hoboken Resident and Property Tax Payer