Lawmakers are set to begin discussions tonight on a proposal by Mayor Steve Noble to declare a housing emergency in the city. If approved by the Common Council, the measure would impose rent stabilization regulations on about 1,200 eligible housing units in Kingston.

The housing emergency declaration is on the agenda for Wednesday’s Laws and Rules Committee meeting, set for 6:30 at City Hall and on Zoom. If it passes the committee, it could go before the full council for a vote next month.

A housing emergency declaration would invoke provisions under the state 1974 Emergency Tenant Protection Act that allows municipalities to establish a Rent Guidelines Board with the power to establish maximum annual rent hikes for eligible properties. The law also requires eligible properties to register with the state Department of Housing and Community Renewal and allows municipalities to charge owners of eligible properties a $20 per unit annual fee to cover administrative costs. The law covers rental housing with six or more units built before 1974. In order to qualify for the ETPA, municipalities must demonstrate that the vacancy rate in eligible units is less than 5 percent.

A survey conducted by the city’s Department of Housing Initiatives in April and May established that the vacancy rate in the ETPA-eligible units in Kingston was just 1.57 percent with just 20 units available to rent. It was the second effort by the city in recent years to invoke the state law; a 2020 housing survey conducted by a contractor hired by the city established the vacancy rate of eligible units at 6.7 percent. Critics of the 2020 survey pointed out that in cases where landlords did not respond to the poll their units were counted as vacant; the most recent survey counted non-responses as a declaration of full occupancy.

The new survey’s results track more closely with data contained in a June 2021 rental housing study by the nonprofit RUPCO which estimated a countywide vacancy rate of just 1.8 percent in non-subsidized housing. The same survey found that 55 percent of tenants in the county were “rent-burdened” — they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs.

“The ETPA will require increased administrative burdens on the part of the city in order to meet the reporting requirements mandated by New York State Department of Housing & Community Renewal,” wrote Kingston Director of Housing Initiatives Bartek Starodaj in a letter urging lawmakers to act on the survey results. “However, there would be about 1,200 units within the City of Kingston that would be subject to rent stabilization under ETPA. These residents would benefit from the preservation of affordable housing.”

In the past year, the council has passed a Good Cause Eviction law and a zoning amendment imposing a 10 percent affordable housing mandate on new multifamily developments. Council Majority Leader Rita Worthington has already signaled support for the housing emergency declaration.