Syracuse Tenants Union hold rally for "good cause" tenant protections on Aug. 12, 2024. Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central Current

Five Syracuse lawmakers will introduce Wednesday a version of “good cause eviction” after a year that saw councilors remain mostly silent on the local law. 

Councilors withdrew the measure from a Syracuse Common Council agenda last February and went mum on the prospect of passing the local law for 12 months. Now, supporters of the bill on the council believe they have the votes to pass it. 

Councilors Hanah Ehrenreich, Chol Majok, Marty Nave, Corey Williams, and Jimmy Monto will co-sponsor the bill, Monto said. 

Advocates locally and across New York have for years urged the council to enact “good cause,” noting that it is a vital tool to help tenants address in court high rent increases and unlawful evictions.

Their pleas come at a time when Central New Yorkers are experiencing homelessness at the highest rate in years, and Syracuse renters have seen some of the sharpest rent increases in the country.

Under the bill, tenants:

  • Could challenge evictions filed in court for reasons not stated in the lease agreement.
  • Could contest at eviction hearings rent increases above 10% of the yearly rent or 5% plus the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.
  • Would be allowed to renew their lease automatically if they are caught up on rent and have abided by the terms of their lease.

“I think that everyone who’s rented before understands the feeling of trying to communicate with and negotiate with a landlord who isn’t being fair,” Ehrenreich said.

“This is the thing that will protect people and keep them housed when they are doing everything they ought to be doing,” she added.

Ehrenreich is one of two newly elected councilors who advocates hoped during the 2025 election season would help pass the bill. 

Along with Mayor Sharon Owens, Ehrenreich pledged support for the bill at a forum where tenants voiced concerns about the city’s housing crisis last summer. 

Owens herself nudged councilors to bring the bill forward at her state of the city address last week. On Tuesday she thanked the council for their willingness to explore good cause, noting that city lawmakers need to engage with a variety of solutions to solve the city’s housing issues.

“As our city experiences unprecedented growth, ensuring we have sufficient housing stock to meet both current residents and future demands is critical,” Owens said in a statement. “To meet this need, the city must look at every tool in the toolbox.”

But the mayor is unlikely to see the bill at her desk until the last week of February. Ehrenreich said the bill will likely be immediately tabled once there is a voting session on Feb. 9. The council could then vote by Feb. 23, sending the local ordinance to Owens desk for approval.

If councilors bring good cause to a vote it would be the first time the legislation has been discussed in a public meeting since last February, when the council voted 5-4 to withdraw the measure. 

At the time, Councilor Patrona Jones-Rowser said the council needed to conduct “further investigation” on enacting the series of tenant protections that have been approved by 17 municipalities across upstate New York, including Rochester, Ithaca, and Albany. 

But the addition of Ehrenreich to the council has changed the math for lawmakers like Monto who had tried to pass the legislation last year.

Ehrenreich, Majok, and Monto told Central Current they would vote in favor of the bill. Nave said the bill is flawed, but did not say how he would vote.

Jones-Rowser and Councilor Donna Moore are likely to vote against good cause, Ehrenreich said. 

Councilor Rasheada Caldwell told Central Current she will also vote no. Williams did not respond to questions from Central Current by the time of publication.

“If we look at recent elections, pro-good cause candidates have gone on to win citywide elections,” Monto said. “There’s a lot of merit in listening to what the electorate has to say, and I listen to my district.”

For Ehrenreich, the bill helps tenants remain in their homes at a time when the city is experiencing a housing crisis. Good cause would not address issues of housing affordability and availability, but it would help give tenants the chance to contest unfair conditions like unreasonable rent hikes.

“It doesn’t fix everything, but this helps landlords who are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. It helps tenants who are doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” she said.

Aversion to discussing the law and opposition

Good cause has been polarizing among councilors since the prospect of its adoption became a reality in April, 2024. State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul reached a deal to include a version of good cause, which had previously languished in the state legislature for five years, in that year’s state budget. 

The language in that bill allowed municipalities to opt into a local version of good cause. 

Timeline of stories about ‘good cause’ in Syracuse

Councilors started considering the bill shortly after that in August, hosting public hearings with fair housing experts, landlords, and legal advocates through the rest of the year.

The legislation’s trail went cold last February under a refrain that was, at that point, familiar for housing advocates: councilors needed to further explore the effects the legislation on the local housing market. 

But those claims never reached some of the experts the council initially consulted.

Sal Curran, the executive director of the Volunteer Lawyers Project of Central New York, was one of the advocates consulted by the council for a briefing on good cause and evictions in Syracuse as a whole. 

Curran told Central Current they advocated to get good cause back on the agenda, but that they had not had contact with the council since December 2024.

City Auditor Alex Marion, who created a report advocating for the passage of the bill, also said the council did not brief him on what new insights they needed to bring the legislation back to the legislative chambers. 

Marion said councilors had not accepted offers on his part to meet and discuss good cause since it was withdrawn.

“It is frustrating that they have not had a more transparent process on this,” Marion said in January. “Every day we don’t have Good Cause Eviction is another day that tenants in Syracuse are seeing their rents go up and are going to be improperly and unfairly evicted from their homes.”

As councilors approach a potential discussion date on the legislation, some have declined to comment on how they would vote.

“It’s not even on our agenda right now, so I don’t even want to discuss it right now,” Moore said in January. However, in an interview with Central Current last October for a candidate Q&A said she did not support the bill.

Nave said in January that the legislation is “very flawed,” but did not say if he would vote in favor of it. He offered similar reservations during the campaign interview but ultimately said he would support the bill.

Caldwell told Central Current on Monday the bill would not work for Syracuse. 

“I think that it needs to be dissected. I don’t think everything in there is for Syracuse,” Caldwell said.

She added that she wanted the conversation about passing Good Cause Eviction to include landlords and tenants and that there are other pieces of legislation in place that do more to protect tenants. 

Jones-Rowser — who is the chair of the council’s committee on neighborhood preservation,  housing support, and redevelopment — declined to comment. She said in October she does not support the legislation and that it is redundant due to other tenant protections already available to tenants. 

Last month Jones-Rowser told reporters she would not comment on her reasons for withdrawing the legislation and her stance on its upcoming reintroduction. Rowser told a reporter she had already expressed her reservations about “good cause” before criticizing Central Current’s reporting. 

“It would probably be best that none of you contact me,” she said in a text message. 

Jones-Rowser and Caldwell said “Article 7-D” petitions, which are part of a state bill that allows tenants to sue their landlords seeking repairs, already offer tenants vital protections.

Curran, whose organization has overseen “7-D” cases, said that state bill does not prevent unreasonable rent increases or unlawful evictions. 

“It’s not solving the same issue,” Curran said. “Rents are going up at an astronomical rate that is completely unsustainable in Syracuse.”

For Ehrenreich, good cause is but one tool in the toolbox they hope to rely on to solve the city’s housing woes.

Ehrenreich said passing good cause would not preclude the council from passing other local laws addressing housing issues. 

“Good cause eviction protects people who are paying their rent, who would otherwise choose to stay in their properties, who have landlords who aren’t responsive, and who have landlords who are being punitive in raising their rents or in canceling their leases,” she said. “It stops landlords from abusing tenants who deserve to live in safe and affordable housing.”

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Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...