New York Assembly and Senate strike deal on sweeping, permanent rent reforms

Changes would further limit hikes but is a bit less radical than some landlords feared

WILL BREDDERMAN reports for Crain’s New York Business

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins announced late Tuesday that their two houses have agreed on reforms to the rules covering nearly 1 million apartments citywide.

The accord came just in time to “age” and be voted upon before the rent laws expire on June 15. It would limit or eliminate many of the mechanisms that allow landlords to increase lease rates on the price-controlled units, but falls well short of some of the measures favored by tenant activists.

The package would, however, end the drama that recurs every few years because, for the first time in decades, it was given no expiration date.

“These reforms give New Yorkers the strongest tenant protections in history,” the two Democrats said in a joint statement. “These reforms will pass both legislative houses and we are hopeful that the governor will sign them into law. It is the right thing to do.”

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The legislation would end high-rent/high-income, often inaccurately referred to as “vacancy decontrol,” in which a vacant apartment escapes the state’s regulatory reach once its rent exceeds $2,774.76 per month—or if the rent passes that threshold and a landlord can show the income of its occupants exceeded $200,000 two years in a row. It also would abolish the vacancy and longevity “bonuses” which permit landlords to dramatically increase rents after tenants move out.

The bill would lock in “preferential rents,” that is, rents that are less than the maximum allowed, as the baseline for future percentage increases set by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board. However, when a tenant with a preferential rent moves out, the landlord can raise the rent to the maximum regulated figure.

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the rent-law debate has concerned major capital improvements and individual apartment improvements, which respectively permit landlords to permanently raise tenants’ rents after renovations to entire buildings or particular units. Some progressives hoped to see these mechanisms eradicated, while landlords and their sympathizers insisted they are necessary incentives for repairs and property investment.

Under the Heastie/Stewart-Cousins package, the rent hikes resulting from such projects would expire after 30 years. Further, it would cap increases for major capital improvements in New York City at 2%, down from 6%, and would require stricter state review and oversight of the procedures, which some landlords have exploited. At least 25% of such improvements would have to be audited, and the kind of improvements that may be counted toward rent increases would be further limited.

Also, landlords would only be able to spend $15,000 on an individual apartment improvement in any given 15-year period, and would be limited to three renovations per unit every 15 years.

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Bayonne will vote on plastic bag ban, as Jersey City’s set to take effect

By Corey W. McDonald | The Jersey Journal

Grocery store patrons may soon see a big difference in these two Hudson County cities in the coming months.

An ordinance up for approval on June 17 by the Bayonne City Council would ban most single-use plastic bags and straws throughout the city. Meanwhile, Jersey City, which approved its own ban in June 2018, is set prohibit the use of single-use plastic throughout the city on June 28.

If Bayonne approves its ordinance, it would join Hoboken, and dozens of other municipalities in the state including Belmar, Point Pleasant and Teaneck by banning all retail locations from providing single-use plastic bags to customers.

The Bayonne council is expected to vote on the ordinance June 19.

“Our administration supports a cleaner community. This proposed ordinance is an important step towards achieving that goal,” Mayor Jimmy Davis said.

Like Jersey City, Bayonne’s ordinance includes some exceptions: plastic for loose produce; newspaper bags; dry-cleaning bags; bags to wrap frozen food, meat or fish; and bags intended for use as garbage, pet, or yard waste will be permitted.

All food service establishments, with the exceptions food trucks and mobile food courts, would be affected by the ban.

Bayonne’s ban would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

Last year state legislators passed a bill that would force customers to pay 5 cents for each plastic bag, but it was vetoed by Gov. Phil Murphy, who said the bill did not go far enough.

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Bullitt Foundation, a heavy hitter in the environmental movement, will wind down its giving

The Bullitt Foundation is nearing the end of grant-giving that has infused the Northwest environmental movement with more than $200 million. The relatively small foundation has had an outsized impact as it pushed the region toward a greener future. Much of that is due to President and CEO Denis Hayes, left, known for organizing the first Earth Day. He walks with Deborah Sigler, who leads tours of the Bullitt Center in Seattle, aka the “Taj Mahal of energy efficiency.” 
(Photo: Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

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Progressive Groups Rally at the NJ Statehouse for a Millionaire’s Tax

Fred Snowflack is a columnist for InsiderNJ
June 10, 2019, 12:19 pm

TRENTON – Just whose side are Democratic leaders in the Legislature on?

That was one of the provocative questions Monday morning when a number of liberal groups rallied outside the Statehouse in support of raising income taxes on millionaires.

The governor supports a millionaires’ tax and polls show a majority of voters do as well. Public support is no real surprise. It’s human nature to support taxing other people and most people, of course, do not earn a million dollars a year.

Gov. Phil Murphy speaks of “tax fairness” when he talks about increasing the rate on those earning a million dollars a year from the current 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent. There’s also the not so insignificant fact that a higher tax would raise close to $500 million.

That was on the mind of Jeff Tittel, who heads New Jersey’s Sierra Club. He said more revenue may stop cuts to the Department of Environmental Protection budget. He said that in New Jersey, a millionaires’ tax “is an environmental issue.”

Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin oppose the tax.

Here’s where the politics gets interesting. Back when Republican Chris Christie was governor, the Legislature with Sweeney still leading the Senate passed a millionaires’ tax only to see the governor veto it. So why would Sweeney and other Democrats not support it now?

Could it be that years back Sweeney and others were pandering to the more left wing faction of the party?  He’d support the tax to please the left knowing that Christie would veto it.

Now that the governor represents the more liberal wing of the Democratic party, Sweeney can no longer have it both ways.

Sweeney at times has said the so-called Trump tax cuts are influencing his thinking. His point is that limiting the federal deduction for state and local taxes to $10,000 can greatly impact the wealthy who are prone to live in lavish homes and this being New Jersey, pay much more than $10,000 a year in property taxes alone. It’s a plausible argument, although worrying about multi-millionaires is not normally a Democratic concern.

And as was pointed out Monday, the federal tax changes, which reduced tax rates, can benefit the wealthy as well.

There was a bad omen for the gathering,  light rain and chilly temperatures for June. But led by an energetic Sue Altman, the head of New Jersey Working Families, about a half dozen speakers talked about the need to increase taxes on millionaires and more importantly, perhaps, to hold Democratic legislators accountable. A letter in support of the tax was signed by more than 100 groups.

But the organizers promised their campaign would be far more active than writing a letter. They said they wanted an “up or down”  vote in the Legislature on a bill to raise taxes on millionaires and that they would “escalate” their efforts in the coming weeks.

That sounds like fun, but when you put aside the rhetoric, you can see a compromise coming. Recall that Murphy wanted a millionaires’ tax last year as well and the compromise raised taxes only on those earning more than $5 million a year.

So, how about lowering that threshold to $3 million?

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Legendary Jersey political boss, Hap Farley’s home for sale. If only the walls could talk

By Clara Lefton  – Special Projects, Philadelphia Business Journal  Updated Jun 7, 2019, 12:31 pm EDT

He was a political legend in South Jersey – and a major force behind the Atlantic City Expressway, the Garden State Parkway and Stockton University.

Sen. Frank S. “Hap” Farley was known as the boss of the Atlantic City Republican political machine that is chronicled in the book Boardwalk Empire. He inherited control of the machine from the notorious Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, whose exploits were highlighted in the HBO series of the same name.

Born in 1901, he served for 34 years in the New Jersey legislature. He died in 1977, but his name lives on through the Frank S. Farley Service Plaza – a popular stop on the Atlantic City Expressway.

Now, his longtime home at 6104 Ventnor Ave. in Ventnor is for sale for $685,000. Check out the photos in the gallery above. The house has four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and sits on a 6,900-square-foot lot that’s two blocks from the beach. Under the current owners, extensive renovations have been done to the home.

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