The Kingston Common Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to pass two resolutions in support of state legislation that, if enacted, would pave the way for taxpayer-supported “social housing” and expand the scope of the state’s rent control law. The memorializing resolutions drew strong support from local housing activists associated with the Democratic Socialists of America. Both resolutions sought to address a statewide housing crisis that has become particularly acute in Kingston since the pandemic.

The Permannetly Affordable Social Housing for New Yorkers Act would create a new public authority which can issue low-cost bonds to support the creation of government-supported social housing. The legislation is intended to fill a gap in existing housing creation programs that make it difficult for developers to build housing aimed at the state’s poorest residents. By building using government funds, the law would effectively insulate low-income housing from market forces.

On Tuesday, following debate on the issue at a caucus meeting the night before, the council unanimously approved an amendment introduced by Alderwoman Teryl Mickens (D-Ward 5) to the resolution that replaced language calling for new social housing to be built with union labor with “prevailing wage labor.” Alderman Michael Tierney (D-Ward 2) — who along with Ninth Ward Alderwoman Michele Hirsch introduced the memorializing resolutions — said the bill would provide an alternative to a “neoliberal” response to the housing crisis that emphasized creating housing for the “missing middle” rather than prioritizing the city’s poorest residents.

“There are so many better benefits to social housing than for-profit housing,” said Tierney. “To de-commodify a necessity of life should be the goal of all of us here as a functioning government.”

The Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants (REST) Act is sponsored in the Assembly by DSA-affiliated lawmaker Sarahana Shrestha (D-Esopus). The law builds on the Emergency Tenants Protection Act of 1974 which was expanded to cover upstate New York in 2019. The ETPA allows communities experiencing a “housing emergency” to impose rent control on some multifamily properties. Shrestha’s bill is motivated by the difficulties experienced by upstate communities in implementing the ETPA. Of four upstate municipalities that opted into the rent control law starting in 2019, Kingston is the only one whose declaration of housing emergency has so far survived legal action by landlord advocacy groups (The city’s rent control law remains under legal review with arguments before the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, scheduled for next week). In each case, attorneys for the landlords targeted a provision in the law which mandates that communities conduct a vacancy survey of eligible properties and establish a vacancy rate below 5 percent in order to enact rent control.

The REST act would allow communities to use a broader range of data, including rates of homelessness and average rent increases to justify the housing emergency and opt-in to the ETPA. The law would also dramatically expand the number of units eligible for rent control. Currently, the ETPA only applies to buildings with six or more units built before 1974. The REST act would encompass all rental properties built within the past 15 years and would update on a rolling basis. The law would also empower communities to lower the size limit for ETPA eligible properties.

“We … want to stop rampant price-gouging on the housing stock that already exists,” said Shrestha in a statement praising the council’s votes on the two resolutions. “To that end, I have introduced the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act so that upstate localities like ours are empowered to declare a housing emergency and exercise more control over how they would like to opt into the state’s rent stabilization laws, and what type of buildings they would like to cover.”