“Good cause eviction” legislation stalled Monday in the Syracuse Common Council chambers. Councilors split 4-4 in a long-awaited vote on the tenant protection law that became a local flashpoint between landlords and renters in a city continuing to navigate a housing crisis.  Tenants and housing advocates packed the chambers for the vote, while Syracuse Police Department officers watched from the entrances and corners of the chambers.  The stalemate on good cause, a bill that advocates say can protect tenants from untenable rent hikes and unmerited or retaliatory eviction, closes the current chapter in the legislation’s two-year saga. Councilors Hanah Ehrenreich, Corey Williams, Jimmy Monto, Chol Majok, and Marty Nave brought the measure back to the council after it had laid dormant since last February. All but Nave voted to enact good cause Monday.  Councilors Donna Moore and Nave — who have in the past publicly committed to supporting the legislation — flipped their votes, joining Councilors Rasheada Caldwell and Patrona Jones-Rowser in opposing good cause. Proponents and detractors of the bill have sparred over how effective good cause could be at a time when the city is experiencing a homelessness crisis and major problems with housing affordability. Around 60% of Syracuse residents are renters, some advocates have estimated. “It wouldn’t have solved all the world’s problems,” Monto said, “but it would have been a good tool.” Jones-Rowser told Central Current after the vote that good cause “doesn’t hit where the tenants want it most, which is slum landlords.” In a statement explaining her vote, Jones-Rowser argued that some data demonstrates that evictions are not as high across the state as tenant advocates have claimed. She cited a slight decline in evictions in the state. “This legislation is not the grand savior in tenant protections,” Jones-Rowser said. “In fact, you already have that.” Existing statewide housing laws, Jones-Rowser argued, already accomplish what proponents say good cause would achieve. Jones-Rowser acknowledged that portions of good cause are not currently covered by existing law, but believes the council can explore other avenues to ensure compliance from landlords. Good cause eviction would have allowed Syracuse renters to: Challenge evictions filed in court for reasons not stated in the lease agreement. Contest at eviction hearings rent increases above 10% of the yearly rent or 5% plus the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Renew their lease automatically if they are caught up on rent and have abided by the terms of their lease. The legislation has been adopted by 19 municipalities since being included in the 2024 state budget and allowing municipalities to opt into a local version of the bill. On Monday, the council held the good cause vote with a vacant seat but appointed former council President Helen Hudson to the vacancy.  Hudson originally opposed good cause but at her public interview with councilors for the vacancy flipped her stance on the measure. She declined to comment on good cause after Monday’s meeting. Hudson and former Councilor Amir Gethers — both prominent opponents of good cause during their tenure on the council — attended the vote. Voting without the full council rendered the vote a tie. In previous Central Current reporting, Common Council President Rita Paniagua said she was open to exploring the possibility of becoming a tiebreaker vote. Paniagua has said she is a supporter of the legislation.  However, the city charter does not afford Paniagua the authority to issue a tiebreaking vote on a local law, according to city lawyers. Paniagua expressed disappointment after the vote, but vowed that good cause, or something similar, would resurface on the council’s agenda. Ehrenreich said she would also like to bring the bill back. “I know what it means to be a renter,” Paniagua said.  The council president recalled moving to Syracuse about 25 years ago as a minority, less proficient in her English-speaking skills. She encountered problems trying to get landlords to fulfill their responsibilities and keeping up with their property. “I’ve been there, I think all of them have been there, so I don’t understand – well, it’s not that I don’t understand. I need to respect where they’re coming from, and I do, and I know that they’ll have the best interest at heart to try and figure out what’s best for our community,” Paniagua said.  Dozens of good cause supporters made their frustration known during the voting session. Mayor Sharon Owens and City Auditor Alex Marion issued statements expressing disappointment with the outcome. Caldwell, Moore, and Jones-Rowser read statements explaining their vote, which were punctuated by shouts of “shame” from proponents of good cause. “Okay landlord,” one supporter of good cause chirped as Jones-Rowser addressed the room. Jones-Rowser addressed the comment afterward in an interview with Central Current, noting that, though she is a landlord, personal considerations did not influence her vote. “It affects me, but it doesn’t affect me in a way that somebody would think that because I’m a landlord, I’m voting against it. It has nothing to do with that,” Jones-Rowser said. “I welcome anyone to come to any of my properties.” During the voting session, Jones-Rowser read a statement explaining her opposition, adding that good cause would only apply to roughly 8,000 to 9,000 housing units in the city. Alex Lawson, the housing policy manager at CNY Fair Housing, questioned the source of Jones-Rowsers’ data. Lawson said that his calculations, which use the most up-to-date census data available, show that good cause would apply to about 25,000 units in the city. Lawson contended that even if the law only applied to 9,000 units, it would still pose benefits for a significant number of city residents. “If that is your real concern, I guess my question would be, why wouldn’t you follow it up by saying, ‘and here’s my plan, to make it stronger’?” Lawson said. “That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying, ‘we want to exempt more units, but also be mad at this because it exempts too few. And also, we’re not going to vote for it.’” How good cause lost key support Nave, who represents the council’s District 1, told a Central Current reporter that he remained undecided on good cause until Monday morning. “This was very, very, very, very hard. Sleepless nights, going back and forth,” Nave said. “This is how I changed my mind this morning.” Nave showed a Central Current reporter an email he said he received that morning, which had influenced his “no” vote. The email only provided a first name, and Nave said he had never met the person who sent it, but insisted the sender was a constituent in his district.  The email read: “Hello, Please vote No on the Good Cause Rent Eviction law. I have been a renter for many years. This law will cause my landlord to be unable to evict bad tenants. Also, my rent will increase. A couple of years ago, there were tenants that were causing trouble in the neighborhood and menacing several neighbors. They lived in Section 8 housing. Fortunately, they moved on their own. I was being threatened physically by them. With these proposed laws, they couldn’t be made to move for months, if at all. Also I have lived in the same apartment for many years. The proposal to make me pay the same amount as new tenants in my building is unfair, since I haven’t caused problems, and haven’t trashed my apartment. I shouldn’t have to pay the same as new people with a recently remodeled apartment.” The email that swayed Nave appears to demonstrate a misunderstanding of portions of good cause eviction. Good cause does not prevent landlords from evicting tenants who violate the terms of their lease. Lease agreements typically highlight criminal activity as a breach of lease terms.  Landlords who lease to Section 8 tenants already abide by a different set of standards that require a “good cause” to evict a tenant. The bill also does not cap rent increases, but it allows tenants to challenge a high rent hike in court. When Central Current asked Nave how he knew the email’s sender was a renter, or a constituent in his district, Nave accused the reporter of having a personal interest in good cause’s adoption. At Thursday’s public hearing on good cause, Nave read a letter from a local landlord opposing the opt-in, and a letter in favor of good cause, which he attributed to Mark Spadafore, president of the Greater Syracuse Labor Council.  After Monday’s vote, Spadafore issued a statement condemning the council’s ‘no’ votes. “The Common Council made their decision. In the future, the unions of the Greater Syracuse Labor Council will do the same,” Spadafore said in a press release.  Nave’s “no” vote, together with Moore’s, dealt good cause a fatal blow. Moore flipped her vote on good cause twice since councilors brought the legislation back into the public eye earlier this month. She publicly announced in an early February post on Facebook she would vote against good cause. Days later, Moore told a Central Current reporter she had flipped her vote to a yes.  She cited a conversation with a tenant at a public meeting in the Westcott neighborhood. When a Central Current reporter asked Moore to connect them with the tenant, Moore said she did not have the tenant’s contact information.  Moore told a reporter she did not remember the tenant’s name and would not name the event at which she met the tenant, citing the tenant’s privacy.  A Central Current reporter on Monday asked Moore what message her “no” vote sent to the tenant. Moore walked away but later responded via text. “I also listened to hundreds of my constituents in district 2 who opposed it for various reasons. That’s the job to listen to my constituents,” Moore said. For some tenant advocates, Moore turned her back on renters.  Genevieve Rand, an organizer at the New York State Tenant Bloc, said she helped organize tenants to support Moore’s campaign last year specifically because Moore told those tenants that she would support good cause if elected. “Donna is telling everybody who’s dealt with an eviction like that, or a rent hike … that the city’s not for them, that the city government isn’t for them, and that instead, it’s for real estate corporations,” Rand said.  Local landlords in the days preceding Monday’s vote have called for the creation of a task force of both tenants and landlords to explore mutually beneficial alternatives to good cause.  Jones-Rowser said she would support the creation of such an advisory body, which she believes could help tailor good cause into law that is more specific to Syracuse than the statewide legislation. The Fair Rent Commission in New Haven, Connecticut, Jones-Rowser said, could provide a model for housing oversight that Syracuse lawmakers could emulate. “The people opposed to opting into good cause have talked a lot about forming a taskforce,” Monto said. “I would suggest they put forth that framework sooner rather than later, because there are a lot of tenants who need help.” That task force remains an abstract concept.  “The way things are now, the fact that you’ve lived in a home for 40 years means nothing if you’re a tenant, it means something very important and special if you are a homeowner, but it means nothing if you’re a tenant,” Lawson said. “And good cause is a way of saying, let’s make that mean something.” Lawson said good cause could bring stability to city renters. “It’s just very frustrating that that’s not something that people are receiving —  that the common councilors don’t see that as valuable,” Lawson said. 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