BAYONNE — Hoping to take advantage of an alternate route to preserving rent control in Bayonne, rent control proponents dropped off petitions on July 25.
The rent control advocates had failed to get enough valid signatures for a referendum earlier this year to overturn an ordinance passed by the city council last November to gradually phase out rent control.
So they are proposing their own ordinance, in was is called an initiative.
The city council passed an ordinance last November that would abolish rent control once current residents moved out of a currently rent controlled apartment.
Bayonne City Clerk Robert Sloan, who has 20 days to evaluate the signatures on the new move, said they need valid signatures of 10 to 15 percent of registered voters in the last Assembly general election.That could be between 563 to 844 signatures. The question would go on the ballot in November.
But the current ordinance would remain in effect until the new ordinance is passed by the public vote in November.