Page 26 - RE-NJ

24 OCTOBER 2022
The New Jersey Apartment Association has changed its address, but there’s nothing unfamiliar about its new home in Trenton. The organization and its in-house team, previously based in Middlesex County, have long been
a key voice in state politics and policymaking, advocating on behalf of a membership that owns and manages some 230,000 rental units..
Now, it’s a stone’s throw from where legislation and regulations are crafted, debated and enacted.
“From an advocacy perspective, just imagine having to drive 30 minutes
to get to Trenton, whereas now I can literally be in the Statehouse in 30 seconds,” said David Brogan, NJAA’s executive director and CEO, during an
interview at the historic, three-story brick building at 162 West State St. that houses its new office.
Brogan, who has led the group since 2014, said the move to Trenton from Monroe Township was “the next logical step” after substantial membership growth and efforts to raise NJAA’s profile in recent years, noting that it joins the New Jersey State Chamber
of Commerce, New Jersey Realtors and other top trade associations
that are based in the capital. And it comes in a time when its role in public policy has been as important as ever: The organization is less than a year removed from a 22-month, statewide eviction moratorium during the COVID-19 crisis, a stretch in which apartment owners lost rent revenue
but still had to cover their business expenses, as NJAA repelled legislation that it said would crush its members by allowing restrictive, drawn-out repayment plans by tenants.
Ultimately, it was part of a coalition that backed S3691, a bill sponsored by state Sen. Brian Stack and enacted last summer, which phased out
the eviction ban and created new protections for tenants who owed back rent. It also created another $500 million in rental assistance funding to help both residents and landlords.
“I give credit to Senator Stack ... because he had to balance the demands and desires of both the tenant advocates and the industry,” Brogan said, later adding: “This is a legislator who is a mayor and also is well known
as a tenant advocate. And he saw the reality that the eviction moratorium couldn’t go on forever, but he also saw the need to protect tenants for the rental debt that was accrued during the pandemic and, for low- and very low- income tenants, giving them an extra few months of protection as we pulled out of the pandemic.”
NJAA’s in-house team of six — whose leadership also includes Nichole LoPresti, executive vice president, and Nicholas Kikis, vice president
for legislative and regulatory affairs — remains vocal in the pandemic’s aftermath. Brogan said there is still
a need for rental assistance beyond the more than $1 billion from the state’s COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program, launched in 2020, and the subsequent funding from Stack’s bill, as landlords and tenants continue to pick up the pieces.
“I think right now the industry as a whole is in recovery mode,” Brogan said, noting that COVID “doesn’t suck all the oxygen out of the room the way it did a year or two years ago.” Yet the crisis will loom large even after the moratorium, as a state Supreme Court order allows renters who receive an eviction notice to file for assistance and get a 60-day stay on their case.
“We’re trying to get back to some sense of normalcy as an industry,” he added.
“I think our members are doing that.
We were thrust into the pandemic, just like everyone else, (but) we had to provide housing and we had to maintain that housing, so we had a very difficult balancing act. And I think our members and our industry really stepped up to the plate, really rose to the occasion as it pertains to balancing those two things.”
Brogan spoke with Real Estate NJ in mid-September about NJAA’s new office, the industry’s recovery post-pandemic and the ongoing role of advocacy and
RIGHT AT HOME
NJAA moves to Trenton, with advocacy looming ever larger after COVID crisis
By Joshua Burd
Photo by Aaron Houston for Real Estate NJ
From left: The New Jersey Apartment Association’s leadership team includes Executive Vice President Nichole LoPresti, Executive Director and CEO David Brogan and Vice President For Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Nicholas Kikis. The organization recently moved its office to Trenton from Monroe Township in Middlesex County, placing it directly across from the Statehouse amid its continued focus on government affairs.