Portside tenants call for enforcement after state finds hundreds of violations; council creates investigatory committee with subpoena power

Dozens of Portside Towers tenants, tenant advocates and legal counsel urged the Jersey City council to compel enforcement after the state Department of Community Affairs found dozens to hundreds of building code violations at the large Portside apartment complex. Speakers said the city’s municipal prosecutor had pursued only a handful of citations despite what tenant groups say are many thousands of daily violations.

What tenants said: Multiple tenants and advocates said the building’s owner, Equity Residential, has repeatedly failed to meet city ordinances requiring a full‑time, on‑site superintendent for buildings with six or more units and 24‑hour uniform security for buildings with 100 or more units. Tenant organizer Daniel Feldman said residents had tracked “71,000 documented violations” across dozens of days and noted that the city had levied fines on only a small fraction of those infractions. “These ordinances remove that choice, and they replace selective enforcement with systematic…