in our Spotlight on Business Report Newark city council on Wednesday adopted a new ordinance that will limit rent increases to 5 percent every year in newly developed buildings that have been exempt from rent control by state law as of today there is not a state law governing rent increases but local municipalities like Newark can adopt their own regulating the amount of rent increases in the city Melissa Rose Cooper reports on what this means for tenants in the city of Newark this is ridiculous we're talking about people's lives we're talking about people living in the street do you not care Newark residents expressing their frustration over the high cost of living in the city data shows roughly a third of renters are spending more than half of their income trying to keep a roof over their head we also know that our immediate income is about 34 to 35 000 for families in our city in addition we know that rent control covers about 70 percent of our units that are currently built in our city for rental purposes so the city is taking step will rent increase ordinance limiting rents increases to five percent a year for each apartment not under rent control any landlord who violates the measure faces fines of up to twelve hundred dollars I see this as essential to be able to keep people who have lived here their whole lives to be able to continue to afford to live in this city where you have what I see is landlords that are seeing what they're getting in the shack Towers two thousand dollars for studio apartment and they're saying well I'm only going to get 800 I'm only going to get 600 let me jack up my rents and so they're jacking them up Advocates of the ordinance say it will help address the affordability crisis that has plagued Newark for years renters have no other place to go and you can continue to raise rents that is the model of institutional buyers that is why they come they are very forthright and Frank about their intentions they have a whole slew of investors behind them to whom they have a fiduciary duty to raise rents as high as possible but many residents feel capping rent increases at five percent a year is still too much one and two percent is unconscionable for residents to live here again gentrifying the folks that are on fixed incomes and they don't make more than thirty four thousand dollars a year the northers that have been here here when nothing else was here our grandparents our parents our aunts and uncles we pour our Blood Sweat and Tears into the City and our taxes that pay your salaries and everybody else's salaries and you load us with the burden of these developers and we can't afford to live here and while some people at the meeting agree the rent ordinance has good intentions they say the lack of affordable housing is still a major problem Newark needs more housing it needs more housing investment it needs good landlords to come in and make the improvements that the city needs to have done and by coming in and you know trying to say that we're going to limit rent increases now at the the narrow subset of properties that are exempt from uh rent control through the state's policy of encouraging new construction State's policy of incurring encouraging new Supply is could ultimately be counterproductive to the to the city's needs but at the end of the day all over the city there are new constructions with or some people have don't make us make us make enough and literally their rents are increased at crazy unconsciousable amount and this is what this ordinance protects Advocates and members of the city council agree more needs to be done to ensure housing is Affordable but they hope the rent ordinance is one step closer to making that happen for NJ Spotlight news I'm Melissa Rose Cooper support for the business report provided by Newark Alliance presenting the brown Mill anniversary block party and Halsey Fest an outdoor Festival on June 24th in downtown Newark online at halseyfest.com [Music]