Good Cause Eviction legislation proposed by Mayor Steve Noble took another step towards passage last week after the Kingston Common Council’s Laws and Rules Committee voted 3-2 to send the law to the full council with a positive recommendation.

The law would apply to all rental properties with two or more units. It would allow tenants to go to court to contest rent hikes above 5 percent as “unconscionable.” Landlords would then have to prove that the increase was justified by increased operating expenses, such as replacing a roof or installing a new heating system. The law also increases tenant protections by allowing renters to continue their lease even if a property changes hands, and requiring landlords to provide justification for an eviction. Tenants could still be evicted for nonpayment of rent, using a property for illegal activity or creating a nuisance for other tenants. The law also allows for eviction if the property owner wishes to change the use of the building or to allow a relative to move in.

Noble’s push for Good Cause Eviction legislation is part of a broader effort by housing activists to enact similar laws in communities across the state after a campaign for a statewide law fell short. Albany, Poughkeepsie and Newburgh recently passed their own Good Cause Eviction laws. Backers of the law in Kingston say it’s needed to protect city residents, the majority of which do not own their own homes, from rent-gouging in the city’s white-hot real estate market, and to prevent landlords from arbitrarily clearing their buildings to make way for new tenants able to pay higher rents.

The legislation has been before the Common Council since September, but the effort stalled last month after, in the absence of Laws and Rules Committee Chairman Jeffrey Ventura Morrell (D-Ward 1), the committee deadlocked on it.

At the next committee meeting on Nov. 17, two committee members, Alderman Don Tallerman (D-Ward 5) and Alderman Patrick O’Reilly (D-Ward 7), continued to argue that the law would unfairly penalize small landlords and could prevent developers from building badly needed rental housing in the city.

O’Reilly said he worries the law would effectively force landlords to put up with unwanted tenants indefinitely. Tallerman, who owns a rental property in Uptown Kingston, said that the law would force landlords to seek legal counsel and go to court anytime they had to raise rents to pay for upkeep or improvements.

“It’s hurtful to developers who might want to come to the city,” said Tallerman. “It’s hurtful to owners of multi-family homes because it makes it more risky.”

But committee member and council Majority Leader Rennie Scott-Childress (D-Ward 3) said that dire predictions about the impact of Good Cause Eviction on rental markets haven’t been borne out by the experience of other communities that had enacted tenant protections. Scott-Childress pointed to the example of New Jersey, which has had a Good Cause Eviction law on the books since the 1980s.

“Any arguments that this would be deleterious to the development of housing just don’t work in terms of the evidence that we’ve got,” said Scott-Childress. “This is not something brand new, this is not something out of the science fiction world.”

The council held the required public hearing on the measure last month, so it could vote to approve the law as early as its next scheduled meeting on Dec. 7.