Sensationalism at the Suburbanite

Was it just an attempt to spice up a slow summer news week, or is there a really a risk that "rents may skyrocket," as the front page headline of the July 5th edition of the Suburbanite speculates?

The sum total of the evidence for an impending jump in Teaneck rents appears to be the fact that new Council member Michael Kevie Feit refused comment on the issues of rent control and vacancy decontrol when questioned by reporter Howard Prosnitz on June 27. Prosnitz suggests that Feit's silence may indicate that he intends to abandon his campaign promise to uphold rent control ordinances.

As discussed here previously, the makeup of the new Township Council does not necessarily preserve the precarious balance that had previously existed on rent control issues. If all new Council members stick to the positions they articulated during the campaign and veteran Council members do not change their views, a majority of the Council would oppose going to full vacancy decontrol. Were Feit to change his tune on the issue, it would only return the Council to a 3-3 deadlock (with Mayor Katz recusing himself). In either case, a major change to the status quo seems highly unlikely.

Even if the balance of power does shift in favor of a deregulated rental market, chances of a significant rise in overall rents materializing are slim. Tenant rights advocate Mitch Kahn, quoted near the end of the Suburbanite article, concedes that Teaneck's rents are already "very close to market level." This calls into question former Council candidate Ronald Schwartz’s alarmist claims, also cited in the piece, that jettisoning rent control would have a “devastating” effect on renters in Teaneck and that “many families would lose their homes.”