For the past two years, a Montclair landlord group has been fighting against the rent control ordinance passed by the town council in 2020.

Now, they are fighting the rent freeze the council enacted at the beginning of the pandemic, and extended several times.

On Monday, the Montclair Property Owners Association (MPOA) filed a supplemental complaint in Newark Superior Court asking Judge Jeffrey Beacham to force the council to end the freeze, claiming it violates New Jersey’s Civil Rights Act, which prohibits “takings without just compensation.”

The group claims in the brief that the rent freeze is “retaliation” for the group’s attempts to invalidate the ordinance and put the rent control issue to the voters, where it is unlikely to pass.