The Oneonta Common Council is moving closer to considering a Good Cause Eviction law with amendments tailored to the city.
Council members on the newly-consolidated Community, Legislation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee expressed interest in more information about how proposed amendments would impact the city and other municipalities’ experiences at its first meeting Tuesday, Aug. 11.
“We do our homework, get caught up, and we’ll go through that,” Chairperson and Deputy Mayor Scott Harrington, R-Sixth Ward, said at the meeting.
The state’s GCE law requires municipalities to opt into its provisions and allows some room for local amendments. In general, the legislation requires covered landlords — those who own 10 units or more — to have cause, like failure to pay rent or nuisance behavior, for not renewing a tenant’s lease if they plan to continue renting out the unit. The law prohibits rent increases of more than 10% upon renewal for covered units. Without the law, landlords can refuse to renew a lease for any non-discriminatory reason.
The committee shakeup and a recent resignation of the Fifth Ward council member Len Carson have changed who will be responsible for reviewing any proposed legislation before it makes it to the full council.
Only one member of the now-defunct Legislative Committee, Shannon McHugh, D-Third Ward, is a member of the new committee. Elayne Mosher Campoli, D-First Ward, and Kaytee Lipari Shue, D-Fourth Ward, are its other members. Carolyn Marks, D-Seventh Ward, was a member of the Legislative Committee and attended Tuesday’s meeting with Don Mathisen, D-Eighth Ward, as audience members. Mayor Dan Buttermann announced the committee consolidation July 30.
In early July, Sai Maurice, a founding member of activist group Reclaim Oneonta, presented to the Common Council a petition with more than 120 signatures calling for the city to pass the law with amendments, which would increase the number of city rentals covered by the law significantly. It would do so primarily by expanding coverage to any landlord who owns two or more rental units.
McHugh, recounting the Legislative Committee’s work, said during Tuesday’s meeting that “I think where we kind of ended up was wanting to hear from students and tenants and people who are experiencing this firsthand,” before returning the issue to the full Common Council.
Harrington said he wanted to see more information from City Attorney David Merzig about the potential impacts of the proposed amendments and how much latitude the city would have in making adjustments to the state’s model legislation.
Mosher Campoli has been advocating for passing some form of the legislation.
She said the proposed amendments are “the kinds of things that we should really look at, to see what is the right fit for what is going to address the tenants’ concerns,” adding that she had heard from some small landlords who wanted to know how the legislation might impact them.
“I think knowing how it’s been impactful in other communities would help our community understand the impact that it could have here,” Mosher Campoli said.
Among the municipalities which have adopted versions of the GCE law are Binghamton, Albany, Ithaca, Kingston, Catskill and Newburgh, according to the state attorney general’s website.
Mosher Campoli said after the meeting that she did not plan to introduce legislation herself at this time, and preferred to reach a consensus with other members about what a law might entail before proceeding.
Maurice said his “overall impression” of Tuesday’s meeting, which he attended, was that he was “disappointed that there is still so much talk of the need to do homework on the issue, though I am certainly not surprised.”
“The call for comment from tenants and students, rather than landlords, from Shannon (McHugh) is a positive development,” Maurice said, referring to a prior Legislative Committee meeting during which the body’s members called for input from both renters and landlords. “Now it’s our responsibility to continue to go out and inform tenants about the need for this law, and get more of them involved in making their voices clear and undeniable to the Common Council.”
Though public comments at meetings on the matter have been supportive of passing a law, a memo distributed in July to Council members by Merzig was more cautious.
“The central question is whether the Council believes that the benefits of increased tenant protections outweigh the potential economic, administrative, and housing-market consequences within the specific context of the City of Oneonta,” the memo stated.