I was at work last Monday when we got an automated message from the City of Kingston, telling us the new proposed zoning code was available at Kingston Forward and to give it a look and then submit comments. I immediately printed out the 139 pages and looked at the parts concerning Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and Short-Term Rentals (STRs). I was instantly dismayed — angry, even. Non-owner occupied short-term rentals (think Airbnb, Vrbo, et al.) are allowed all over town, in direct and absolute contradiction to the resolution the Common Council had just passed, which clearly stated NO non-owner occupied STRs. I immediately resolved to attend the introductory Zoom meeting on Wednesday and go to the meeting at City Hall on Thursday.

I read some more to prepare for the meeting and saw that ADUs (an idea put into place to increase the number of rental units by allowing apartments and other auxiliary dwellings in various places where they were banned, especially areas zoned for single-family homes) would be forbidden to be used as short-term rentals.

This was perfect, as ADUs’ specific purpose is to create long-term housing in a market decimated in recent years, primarily by non-local investors. We all know that rentals are Kingston’s hottest commodity — it being undecided if they are more rare than they are ludicrously overpriced, or the other way around. However, the “safety net” to prevent ADUs becoming short term rentals is a minimum 30-day rental.

This makes sense on the surface — most Airbnb and vacation rentals are not a month long, after all. However, as the Town of Woodstock has learned the hard way, a 30-day minimum is not sufficient. These vacationers have money of a sort we locals often can’t quite grasp. They will pay for 30 days, and only use it for the weekends, or one week of the 30 days. Woodstock is currently working to correct this problem. But I have to ask why Kingston is about to put in place a plan that is already well-known to be ineffective?

I arrived at the meeting at City Hall already frustrated, and I looked it. I was met by a young man named Eric, who works for Dover, Kohl, the firm that created the plan, and he listened well and sympathetically. This went far to helping me simmer down so I could absorb answers to my questions. My main concern is with the non-owner occupied short-term rentals, and I told them I would get that defeated no matter what. (I believe, collectively, we certainly can). “But,” Eric said, “did you look at the rest of the code?” I had to confess I had not — I work full-time and had company and had only had two busy evenings to look things over.

They explained the jewel in the new zoning law’s crown, and I approved of it so wholeheartedly, I forgot a lot of my other concerns. The new zoning law allows most houses now zoned as single family, to be divided into two, and some parcels into more. I immediately thought, this could put home ownership within MY reach, and so many others like me, if we could, without needing to go through a lengthy zoning board of appeals process, simply get a permit to add an apartment and (at a reasonable rate of rent), supplement our income to help pay the mortgage and taxes. A most wonderful change, I thought.

I remembered to ask why mobile homes aren’t allowed as ADUs, and they explained that many people have an (in my opinion irrational) adamant opposition to mobile homes, and they did not

want to jeopardize the whole ADU concept. This rings true, and I was satisfied with this answer.

I was so satisfied with their answers that it was only after I left that my concerns about the non-owner occupied STRs again came to mind. The other changes might seem to negate the need to disallow them, but the hard truth is this: it will be at least three years before we reap the benefits of that change, and with the way the economy is going, probably much longer.

But our housing crunch is immediate and truly desperate. In the Town of Olive, a town also overrun with Airbnbs and the like, they recently enacted a new policy: Non-owner occupied can be grandfathered in if the owners can prove they have been operating for a year; a person is only allowed ONE; LLCs must submit names of all members, and a person even as part of an LLC can only own two. The number of new non-owner occupied STRs is capped at zero.

They are not messing around. There is an inspection process, and anyone in violation will be fined $500 a DAY. They worked hard to make sure that their housing stock is not decimated and that owners are accountable, and I would like to see the exact same plan in Kingston.

In the Town of Andes, also decimated (we ALL have been — Ulster County was the biggest generator of income for Airbnb in the entire Hudson Valley in 2020, as people from the city escaped to our gorgeous locales) the building inspector checks the hotel tax lists and busts unregistered Airbnbs. If he can do that, so can we.

As for this process? I find it dismaying that we only have three weeks to submit comments on a 139-page plan, and that most of the meetings were open houses, which means only you and the person you are speaking to are privy to those particular concerns and answers. I also didn’t like that meetings were held on a Saturday, a graduation-time Saturday no less, with very little advance notice. Nor do I like that the public comment meeting is only on Zoom, which excludes people who don’t have access to computers or internet. The code’s splashy presentation last week was a hybrid meeting — people could participate in person or by Zoom — and I think this is a more appropriate way to handle the comment meeting as well.

I think we have a solid start here with the new code — and we have some incredibly important revisions to make.