After the string of fires that have plagued Union City since Dec. 2, 2001, Mayor Brian Stack has been taking every precaution to ensure that the buildings are safe and the tenants displaced by the fires can find housing. An ordinance granting tenants the right to quickly move back into their repaired apartments after a fire occurs was introduced at the March 5 Union City Board of Commissioners meeting.
The apartments would have to be approved for occupancy by the Construction Code Official before the tenants could live in them again.
The ordinance passed on first hearing and will be up for a second hearing and final vote at the meeting on March 19.
This ordinance was introduced the same week that Stack testified before the New Jersey Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee for a bill that would enable landlords to receive loans to install firewalls in their common cockloft area, which is the void between the ceiling of the top floor and the underside of the roof where many of these fires spread to neighboring buildings. A “common cockloft” is constructed above several adjoining buildings.
Lack of housing
After the string of fires that erupted in the city, beginning with the three four-alarm fires on Dec. 2, Stack has had to relocate more than 100 displaced families.
The Dec. 2 fires started at 1016 Summit Ave. and spread to five two-story apartment buildings and first level businesses, and then to 604 10th St. and 420 13th St., both residential properties.
Another fire on Jan. 1 began at 910 Summit Ave. and spread to apartments at 908 and 912 Summit Ave.
Since then, three other fires, one on Seventh Street and Central Avenue, another on 46th Street, and a last one on 11th Street, were not deemed suspicious or under investigation for arson.
According to Stack, only four of the displaced families could be relocated to affordable housing units within the city, which motivated the board to introduce the current ordinance.
According to Stack, two families that were forced out of their apartments are now having a hard time moving back in after the apartments have been renovated.
“The landlord doesn’t want them back,” said Stack.
The ordinance will prevent other landlords from refusing to let their tenants back, and it also states if the building is subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, the tenant can return to their apartment at the existing legal rate of the time of vacating the premise.
However, the ordinance does not apply to those properties razed after fires.
A state statute, 46:8-6, that is already in place, makes it mandatory for a landlord to repair property damaged by a fire as long as the property was not damaged by fault of the tenant. But this law does not mention whether the landlord is forced to allow the tenant back into the apartment once the renovations are complete.