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发帖数: 4451 | 1 A new Englewood Cliffs ordinance that bans homeowners from renting out their
houses for less than six months at a time may be the first law of its kind
in New Jersey, or anywhere else.
The Borough Council unanimously approved the measure last week in response
to neighbors’ complaints about a constant stream of renters at 1 Snyder
Road, a modern, single-family home owned by businessman Jude Bernard, who
advertises the house on the web for $3,000 a week.
Officials said Bernard’s home turned into a party house when he was out of
town and renters moved in, with cars clogging the horseshoe-shaped street
and renters leaving everything from beer cans to condoms in the yard.
“The neighbors have been screaming about it,” Council President Joseph
Favaro said. “We had to do something.”
Bernard said his neighbors never complained to him about noise or parties in
the six years he’s lived in the house. He said he believes he was targeted
because he’s a single black man living in Englewood Cliffs, where the 2010
Census says only 2.1 percent of the borough’s nearly 5,300 residents are
black.
“I’m an obvious target because I don’t fit the profile,” the 39-year-old
said. “I guess it doesn’t pay to be a minority in this town.”
Mayor Joseph Parisi said Bernard’s race or marital status had nothing to do
with the ordinance. Instead, he said, the parade of renters clashed with
the nature of the neighborhood and the character of the borough.
“In our town, you know your neighbors,” Parisi said. “This was a constant
changeover of people. That’s not normal for Englewood Cliffs. We don’t
have bed and breakfasts or hotels.”
The ordinance, Parisi said, protects renters because it requires a
certificate of occupancy for each new tenant and a building department
inspection to ensure that smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are installed
and operational.
“We’re going in and making sure everything is up to code,” he said.
Borough Attorney E. Carter Corriston said he wrote the ordinance to set “
reasonable” rental rules, although he acknowledged that the six-month
minimum may set a precedent.
“We’ll find out if it’s legal,” he said of possible challenges. “You
can’t prevent someone from renting their homes. What we don’t want is a
rooming house or a hotel masquerading as a house.”
Englewood Cliffs is part of a growing number of communities that have short-
term rental laws. New York City requires apartments be rented for at least
30 days, unless the owner is living there and is subletting a room. Some
Shore towns have used the state’s “Animal House” law to force owners of
nuisance homes that are the source of chronic complaints about noise and
trash to post a bond to help cover the cost of law enforcement.
At least four Minnesota municipalities have set caps limiting the percentage
of rentals in a community. In Lincoln, Neb., where University of Nebraska
football fans would rent houses for home games, officials put a halt to most
of it by using a zoning law that restricts boarding homes to downtown areas.
But Englewood Cliffs’ six-month minimum stay may put the borough in a
category of its own.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Matt Shapiro, president of the New Jersey
Tenants Organization. “It is unusual. It’s a new one to me.”
The ordinance, which was adopted Aug. 8, was first introduced as a special
morning meeting on July 18. Some of Bernard’s neighbors attended to support
the measure, while Bernard said he was never informed about the meeting or
given a chance to defend himself.
Oscar Digirolano, who lives at 6 Snyder Road, led the effort, officials said
. Digirolano told the council that cleaning crews would come daily when
renters were staying at the home.
“It’s not a house – this guy is running a motel,” he told the council.
Betty Domb, who lives at 5 Snyder Road, told the council that the house
parties had driven her out of her home and into local restaurants so she
could have a meal in peace. “It just gets intolerable,” she said.
Both neighbors declined to discuss the ordinance or Bernard’s accusations
when contacted this week. Digirolano said the matter was closed and hung up
the phone.
Bernard, who lives in the home but is away on business up to two weeks a
month, said he began renting it out after a burglary in March 2011 so that
someone would be there to watch over it.
Police reports show that, on Aug. 4, 2011, police received an anonymous
letter from “a concerned resident” complaining about large parties at
Bernard’s home and garbage and debris being strewn on neighbors’ lawns. A
sergeant spoke to Bernard, who said he would “keep a check” on his guests
in the future, the report said.
In the year since, police received a noise complaint, a report of a dispute
between a woman and two men and three other calls about trucks parked
outside, children playing in a pool and a “beeping noise” from the
backyard that officers checked out and determined nothing suspicious was
going on.
Bernard said he wished his neighbors would have come to him with any
complaints. He said he moved to Englewood Cliffs from Rosedale, Queens, to
live in a quiet suburb close to the city.
Bernard, who owns a hair-importing business in Manhattan called Select
Strands, said he advertised the house, valued at $955,000, on homeaway.com.
He said he tried to choose people who didn’t just want to use his home as a
“hangout.”
“I would have to feel comfortable leaving them in my house,” he said.
Bernard said he first learned there was a problem last August when he
received a letter from the borough accusing him of improper use, a zoning
violation. He said he pleaded guilty and paid a fine. He hired a lawyer when
he was issued a second violation on March 27. The charge was dropped on
July 19 – the day after the ordinance was introduced, he said.
His lawyer, Scott Porter, said the borough “unnecessarily and unfairly”
barred Bernard from renting his home and may have improperly restricted the
rights of other residents as well.
“It seems to me important constitutional issues have been implicated by
this new ordinance and I would expect the issues will be litigated at some
point,” he said in an email.
Bernard said he would obey the new ordinance, which he learned had been
approved when a reporter approached him on Monday.
“I think it’s kind of despicable that they would not advise me of any of
this,” he said. “It’s so preposterous. But this is a small town so I
guess they can do whatever they want.”
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