Kingston Mayor Steve Noble

Kingston Mayor Steve Noble

KINGSTON, N.Y. — Mayor Steve Noble on Wednesday signed a Common Council resolution that supports state legislation to allow rent control throughout New York.

The council voted 8-1 Tuesday night to adopt a memorializing resolution that calls on lawmakers in Albany to strike geographic restrictions from New York's Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 so local governments can take an active role in addressing the cost of rental housing and provide rental rights to tenants.

Alderman Patrick O'Reilly cast the lone "no" vote. 

The Emergency Tenant Protection Act, set to expire this year, provides protections, including rent stabilization, under which which landlords are subject to regulated rent increases and tenants have the right to renew leases, according to the city resolution.

The act currently applies only to New York City and municipalities in Rockland, Westchester and Nassau counties. Lifting the geographic restrictions would allow other counties to opt into the provisions of the act, which, in turn, would allow cities, towns and villages to decide whether they want to enact rent control.

O'Reilly, a nonenrolled voter who represents Ward 7, said the city is in a housing crisis and the way to address that is to build more housing and rental units, not just for low-income residents.

O'Reilly said instead of considering rent control, the city should make changes to its zoning and building codes to make it easier for developers to build new housing. There also should be incentives for people to become landlords by adding accessory apartments to their homes, such as in a garage or basement, the alderman said. 

"And when there's more housing, the rents will naturally come down," he said, adding that enacting rent control would put a cap on the income landlords could earn on their rental units, which would remove their incentive to build. It also would keeps developers away, O'Reilly said. 

For people who are in a crisis over rent increases, there could be a tax credit to help them, O'Reilly added. 

Noble, in a prepared statement issued Wednesday, said signing the resolution was "a public statement to our community and to our lawmakers in Albany."

"It is the first of many steps to ensure that long-term renters don’t get priced out of their homes,” Noble said. “There is much more to do, and my administration is committed to taking all the necessary steps to ensure that everyone in our community can continue to call Kingston home."

Council Majority Leader Reynolds Scott-Childress agreed the city needs more housing units for all income levels. However, he said, it's not easy to get developers to create that housing.

Scott-Childress, D-Ward 3, added that the city wants to make sure property owners are incentivized to do the right thing, but also wants to protect renters and people on fixed incomes or who are on the low end of the economic scale.

"There is nothing in this resolution tonight that will go against anything that Alderman O'Reilly mentioned," Scott-Childress said. "This is, in fact, simply giving us one tool out of many that we can use to address the housing situation here in Kingston." He said voting for the resolution tells New York state representatives that Kingston wants that tool.

Other council members echoed Scott-Childress' comments, saying the vote was not to adopt rent-control laws but to seek that option for possible future use. 

Alderwoman Rita Worthington said she did not believe anyone at the meeting could say Kingston was not having a housing crisis. The council's action was one way to possibly address it, she said.

"I'm for incentives for landlords, but I'm also for affordable housing," said Worthington, D-Ward 4. "I think that we should do both at the same time."

The resolution adopted by the council also shows the city's support for three other rent-stabilization bills being considered by the state. One would repeal a rent-control provision that provides landlords with a 20 percent "statutory vacancy bonus" every time a rental unit turns over to a new tenant; another would mandate landlords renew rent-stabilized leases with increases, if any, based on the existing rent the tenant pays; and the third would prevent landlords from being able to take apartments out of rent regulation when existing tenants leave.

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