Red Bank’s East Side parking lots could be the scene of a skateboarding event in May. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A spring 2022 skateboarding event is up for approval by the Red Bank council at its semimonthly meeting Wednesday night.
Also on the agenda: a change in the rent-control ordinance, a couple of murals and more.
The Grandville Towers pool remained closed throughout the summer. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After months of hearings, Red Bank’s rent leveling board ruled Thursday night that four tenants at Grandville Towers were entitled to money for being deprived access to the swimming pool this summer.
The judgment? A one-time rent credit of $33, plus $3.96 for missed use of the gym at the 91-unit highrise.
The Grandville Towers pool remained closed throughout the summer. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After three hearings, a partial verdict is in: tenants at Red Bank’s Grandville Towers received “reduced service” when the swimming pool didn’t open this summer.
Up next: the borough rent leveling board tackles the question of what that means in rent to be refunded, if anything.
The Grandville Towers pool has not opened all summer. (redbankgreen photo. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Thursday’s meeting of the Red Bank rent leveling board included a sharp disagreement over whether capital improvements to an apartment building’s pool enhanced the property’s value.
Grandville Towers resident Jane Manning asks a question of the Rent Leveling Board last Thursday night (Photo by Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)
By SARAH KLEPNER
Red Bank’s Grandville Towers Grandville Towers is getting glass railings, but not a new pool not at the tenants’ expense, at least.
Thursday night, the Rent Leveling Board went line by line over PRC Management’s proposal for $3 million-plus worth of work at the 10-story apartment building, which the applicant sought to have covered by rent surcharges.
By JOHN T. WARD
After three decades getting a discount, Red Bank tenants could have to pick up full cost-of-living increases starting later this year.
The borough council introduced an ordinance change Wednesday night that would allow landlords to increase rents by the full amount of the Consumer Price Index published by the federal Labor Department.
Since as far back as 1978 or even earlier, local increases have been capped at 60 percent of the CPI rise when a tenant pays for heat, and 80 percent when the landlord does.
The reason for the change, said Mayor Pasquale Menna, is that no one can remember the rationale for the discount, and no paper trail for it exists, leaving it open to a lawsuit.
“If it were challenged, we would not prevail,” said Menna, an attorney who made his political bones as a tenants’ advocate in the early 1980s. “It’s defective.”
Red Bank Terrace is one of two apartment complexes with complaints pending before the borough’s Rent Leveling Board. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
The meetings of Red Bank’s Rent Leveling Board tend to fly under the radar, given the often sleepy agendas. But Thursday night’s meeting looks like an exception.
Lined up for the board’s consideration are three tenant complaints, making for a potentially packed evening for the five-member body.