In a first in New York State, Kingston’s new Rent Guidelines Board voted Wednesday to slash rents in housing units covered by state rent stabilization law. The 15 percent reduction will apply to about 1,300 apartments at 64 properties covered by the Emergency Tenant Protection Act. The board also voted to allow tenants in eligible properties to appeal rent increases going back to 2019.

The groundbreaking vote comes three months after the city declared a housing emergency as defined by the state Emergency Tenant Protection Act. The declaration authorized the city to form a Rent Guidelines Board empowered to set maximum annual rent hikes at eligible properties. (The law applies to rental housing built before 1974 with six or more units.)

On Wednesday, the nine-member board convened to set an initial “Fair Market Rent” that will serve as a baseline for future decisions on rent hikes. The board also established a look-back period going back to 2019 — this will allow tenants to seek a one-time rent adjustment on an earlier lease. The meeting followed a series of public hearings where tenants and property owners had a chance to weigh in with their views on how the board should proceed.

The Rent Guidelines Board consists of two tenant representatives, two property owner representatives and five “public” members who must have professional experience in real estate or finance. At Wednesday’s meeting, tenant representatives Carol Soto and Michael Tierney pushed for a 30 percent rent reduction, while property owner representative Tara Perry suggested a 5percent increase.

Perry, echoing arguments of rent stabilization foes, said that cutting rents would cause property owners to cut back on maintenance or abandon Kingston’s housing market entirely. Perry used the example of the 267-unit Stony Run apartment complex, where renters have formed a tenants’ union and turned out in strength to the public hearings as an example. With a 30 percent rent reduction and three-year look back period, Perry estimated, Stony Run owners, the Beacon-based Aker real estate firm, stood to lose $2 million in profits annually on the complex.

“A rent reduction and a long look-back period sound great, but in reality, when you look at the numbers it is unrealistic,” said Perry. “You will not have properties left to rent if you approve this instead what will have is landlords turning into slumlords.”

In a straw poll taken by the board, Perry was the sole vote for the 5 percent increase. Meanwhile, tenant representatives argued that the 30 percent cut reflected data showing enormous rent increases in the city since 2015. It shows that between 2016 and 2020, rents for one-bedroom apartments went up 27 percent; on two-bedroom units it rose 48 percent. Supporters of the 30 percent reduction also argued for a three-year look back period because, they said, many tenants had reported that property owners had begun imposing huge rent hikes back in 2019 when Mayor Steve Noble first announced support for rent stabilization.

“It’s been very conclusive that landlords have been making a lot of money over a lot of years … and care very little about who gets put out on the street,” said Soto, who lives at Stony Run. “So I think a rent reduction is the only answer for a one-time market adjustment.”

After a second straw poll for a 30 percent reduction failed to draw five votes, public representative Mie Inouye suggested a 15 percent reduction with a three-year look back period. Inouye said that she believed the smaller rent cut would still help tenants while avoiding major disruption of the local housing market.

“It would be significant, it would make a difference in tenants’ ability to survive and live in Kingston,” said Inouye. “I also think that landlords can absorb that given the profits they have made over the past five years.”

Inouye’s compromise was adopted 6-3, with both property owner representatives and public representative Mike Brown casting dissenting votes. The 15 percent cut applies to all leases at eligible properties signed between Aug. 1 of this year and Sept. 30, 2023. The board will convene again over the summer to set a maximum rent increase for the coming year.

The three-year look back period, meanwhile, will give tenants whose rents increased by more than 15 percent between Jan. 1, 2019 and Aug. 1, 2022 the right to seek a Fair Market Rent adjustment hearing through the state Department of Housing and Community Renewal.

A coalition of activist groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America and For the Many, pushed for both the new rent stabilization law and the 30 percent rent reduction. The groups also helped organize the tenants union at Stony Run. On Friday, Aaron Narraph Fernando, For the Many’s communications director, said the coalition’s next task is educating tenants about their new rights and how to seek a rent adjustment through DHCR. Fernando said that he expects the coalition to work closely with the city, based on Mayor Steve Noble’s strong support for rent stabilization and prior work with housing advocates.

“It takes a lot of outreach,” said Fernando. “Luckily, we have the support of the mayor and I think we’ll be working closely with him as we have in the past.”

But Kingston’s rent stabilization efforts face a challenge in state Supreme Court from an association of owners of smaller ETPA-eligible properties. The lawsuit filed earlier this month seeks to nullify the housing emergency declaration based on what plaintiffs say are issues with a rental housing vacancy survey conducted by the city’s Department of Housing Initiatives. The ETPA requires municipalities to establish a vacancy rate below 5 percent in eligible properties before they can impose rent stabilization.

The lawsuit alleges that city’s survey, which found a vacancy rate below 2 percent, used sloppy methodology and was designed to ensure results would come in below the threshold. The suit contends that a more rigorous survey conducted by the property owners’ association determined that the actual vacancy rate in ETPA-eligible rental housing was 6.7 percent, making the city ineligible for rent stabilization. A judge rejected the association’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt further action by the rent board, but the case remains before the court.