In January of 2020, the New Hope City Council passed an affordable housing protection ordinance to help protect tenants who are at or below 60% of the area median income level from increased rents due to a change of ownership or management style. The highlights of the tenant protection ordinance include:
- Whenever ownership of an affordable housing building is transferred, the new owner shall, within 30 days after the date on which a real estate closing transfers ownership of the affordable housing building, give written notice to each affordable housing unit tenant of the building that the property is under new ownership. The notice must include the following information:
• Information regarding the new owner.
• Notice of a tenant protection period and possible relocation assistance being made available to the tenant.
• Any rent increases within the tenant protection period.
• Whether the new owner will require the existing tenants to be re-screened to determine compliance with existing or modified residency screening criteria during the tenant protection period.
• Whether the new owner will terminate or not re-new rental agreements without cause during the tenant protection period and if so, notice of when the rental agreements will terminate.
• Whether the new owner intends to increase rent, require re-screening of tenants, or terminate or not re-new rental agreements on the day immediately following the tenant protection period.
- Relocation assistance to be paid to tenants by the new owner if the new owner of an affordable housing building terminates or refuses to re-new any rental agreement without cause during the tenant protection period. The ordinance defines the tenant protection period as the last day of the third calendar month following the month in which the notice of the sale is sent to the tenant (90 days after last day of month notice is issued).
- Penalties will be issued to new owner(s) for failure to provide relocation assistance and/or the above notice in the form of administrative citation and civil penalties.
The ordinance only applies to the apartments where at least 20% of the units rent for an amount that is affordable to households at or below 60% of the area median income levels. A list of apartments and those that qualify as affordable can be found on the Renters page.