Portside Towers Legal Fight for Rent Control

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We are the tenants of Portside Towers, two buildings located in Jersey City, NJ, and we need your help. In the last 24 months, most of the 500+ units in our buildings received 20-40% rent increases, but we learned that we should never have gotten more than 4% increases. We believe our landlord, Equity Residential, has violated the rent control laws of Jersey City and the state of New Jersey, and any violation of such is consumer fraud. We also believe our current Mayor and his administration, in an effort to protect our landlord from large monetary damages, are actively choosing to not enforce existing laws establishing rent control as the default for all buildings in Jersey City.

We find ourselves in a situation where we know our rights have been violated under the law, but even after we have fought for months, and managed to get our story out in the press to the entire country (see links below), tenants in our buildings are still overpaying by over half a million dollars per month. Our friends and family are being effectively evicted. Some of our once-neighbors are now homeless. The city’s employees empowered to right this wrong are ignoring us in the hopes they will financially exhaust us, and we will go away.

Please read our story as a warning of what is happening all over the country. Join us to make a stand that sends a shockwave across the country so strong, even the most well-established and coordinated landlord corruption schemes will crumble.

We used to believe laws and our elected politicians would protect us. The law says we should be safe in our homes and protected from illegal rents or illegal rent increases. Behaving lawfully is what citizens expect of their elected representatives. But what we have discovered has shocked a community to a degree that it has reached a level of national attention. Can the machine of politicians and big companies be so strong they are above the law? Imagine you or your friends or family are in this situation. What if they are effectively evicted from their homes with no hope of help, regardless of the law, even if they managed to get national press coverage of these injustices? What if help is being purposefully denied?

Here is our story:

It all started with an email to the Jersey City office of Landlord-Tenant Relations in May of 2022.

…a tenant emailed a simple question after being subject to crazy high rent increases: “Is my building subject to rent control?”

The answer came back: Yes. And in that reply, we were first told about Annual Landlord Registration Statements.

We obtained these statements for our buildings, which confirmed, under the signature of our landlord, and subject to penalty, that Yes, our buildings were, and are, subject to rent control.

These statements require proof if the landlord claims the building is not subject to rent control. We learned that proof is a filing of a claim of exemption that can only be made by the building’s original owner. That filing must have occurred at least 30 days before the completion of the building’s construction. The completion of construction date is the date the building’s certificate of occupancy was issued. These facts are written in our local Ordinance and New Jersey state law.

So, we had the communication from the Office of Landlord-Tenant Relations that at least one of Portside Tower’s buildings was subject to rent control. We then obtained copies of the Annual Landlord Registration Statements, and they confirmed the rent control status for both buildings. Next, we obtained the certificates of occupancy for both buildings, and we requested, for each building, the claim of exemption that is statutorily required to be filed at least 30 days in advance of the issuance of the building’s certificate of occupancy.

No filings were located for either of Portside’s buildings. Things were coming into focus.

We then learned about Jersey City’s rent control ordinance (local law, Ordinance 260), the Office of Landlord-Tenant Relations exists to enforce that Ordinance, and rent control is the default in our city unless a building’s original owner takes specific steps to gain a temporary exemption to rent control. The official title of the Director of the Office of Landlord-Tenant Relations is Rent Leveling Administrator.

In September of 2022, Jersey City’s Rent Leveling Administrator, a lawyer named Dinah Hendon, issued her official determinations for both Portside buildings in letters stating that each had an exemption from rent control for the longest period possible: 30 years. The determination letters contained statements that demonstrate she was not following the law when she made her determinations, which were in favor of our landlord, Equity Residential.

Here are just a few examples:

“…in [NJSA] 2A:42-84.4 which requires that a written statement of the owner’s claim be sent to the municipal construction code official 30 days before the issuance of the CO...” -Director Hendon

“Portside was not the owner at the time the CO for 100 Warren was issued in August 1992 and, evidently the owner at that time did not apply for the exemption because the intention was to have condominiums, not rentals, in the building…” -Director Hendon

“To date, no letter to the Construction Code Official in connection with the requested exemption from rent control for 155 Washington has been located” -Director Hendon

Without a lawful basis, Dinah Hendon changed the determination she communicated to tenants in May 2022 (yes, the buildings are subject to rent control) to one that aligned with the landlord in September 2022 (no, they are exempt, for a period of 30 years). Further, Dinah Hendon overlooked the several years that our landlord certified, under penalty, on lawfully mandated Annual Landlord Registration Statements, that the Portside buildings are subject to rent control, with the excuse that all of them were “clerical errors.” This means, that she willingly/willfully ignored three years of official documents.

As for the fact that no required claims of exemption from rent control were ever filed within the statutory timeframe, Dinah Hendon’s excuse was that perhaps city employees just can’t find them, and those missing filings must be assumed to exist anyway.

You get the picture – there is something big and nefarious at play. The entirety of Jersey City’s government dug in its heels thinking we would give up all hope after receiving Dinah Hendon’s determination letters in September 2022.

The mayor and his administration have underestimated us. Instead of accepting unlawful determinations, we organized. We formed a tenant association for each Portside Tower. We contacted the press, which resulted in national and local coverage of our story. Then we began appearing regularly to speak at City Council meetings. At one such meeting, Joyce Watterman, Jersey City’s City Council President, stated "…because if paperwork was not filed correctly, I see your point. I do. I just think that as a city, when we fall short, we just gotta own it, so to say. Please don’t clap. We just have to do what’s right." With this, we were hopeful that the court of public opinion would rule before the Superior Court of NJ would have to. But sadly, President Watterman’s words did not lead to action to remedy the harm being inflicted on tenants.

Now, nearly six months later, we know we need to fight with a force larger than that of Portside tenants alone. We are up against a citywide effort that positioned our bad actor landlord, Equity Residential, to be able to drag out a legal battle in an attempt to crush us. The city is favoring a landlord who overcharged tenants more than 40 million dollars. We cannot let this happen. If the landlords and corrupt politicians are successful, it dooms tens of thousands of tenants across the country to the same fate.

Help us win this fight. Every penny raised will fund our legal battle as we take this to the courts of New Jersey. The outcome may very likely set precedent and case law for tenants that come after us. Any remaining funds will be made available to fund the fight for other tenants of Jersey City who are also paying illegal rent.

Learn more about us – please watch the impassioned, fact-based speeches we’ve given during our City Council meetings:

City Council Meetings:

November 9, 2022 => Click Here

November 28, 2022 => Click Here

December 14, 2022 =>Click Here

December 22, 2022 (Special Meeting) =>Click Here

January 11, 2023 => Click Here

January 25, 2023> Hudson County Commissioner => Click Here

January 25, 2023 => Click Here

February 8, 2023> Hudson County Commissioner Letter => Click Here

February 8, 2023 => Click Here

February 23, 2023 => Click Here

March 23, 2023 => Click Here

News Articles:

October 30, 2017 – Politico – Bid Rig =>Click Here

October 4, 2021 – Hudson County View - Solomon proposes Jersey City ethics reforms =>Click Here

October 10, 2022 - Patch.com >Click Here

November 21, 2022 - Wall Street Journal =>Click Here

November 21, 2022 - Patch.com =>Click Here

November 21, 2022 - The Real Deal =>Click Here

November 23, 2022 - YouTube Story =>Click Here

December 1, 2022 - Patch.com =>Click Here

December 7, 2022 - Hudson Reporter =>Click Here

December 15, 2022 - Hudson County View =>Click Here

January 13, 2023 - Jersey City Times =>Click Here

January 17, 2023 > - Hudson County View - Ron Bautista Letter=>Click Here

January 17, 2023 > Ron Bautista Video=>Click Here

January 23, 2023 - Hudson County View =>Click Here

January 24, 2023 – Eleana Little – I stand with Portside Towers =>Click Here

January 26, 2023 - Hudson County View =>Click Here

February 11, 2023 - NJ.com =>Click Here

February 19, 2023 - Front Page Star Ledger =>Click Here

February 24, 2023 - Hudson County View =>Click Here

Thank you for your help!

-Tenants of Portside Towers

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