As we’ve written in this space before, your Editorial Team thinks affordable housing is the most pressing need Kingston faces. We are far from alone in this belief — it’s shared by many who have the power to address the problem. It’s because of the consensus shared by city government, county government and (with an asterisk) state government that we think 2023 will be a historic year in Kingston for housing regular people can actually afford to live in.

To back up that last sentence calls for a look at what’s been happening over the past week. There are a lot of moving parts on multiple levels, so bear with us as we to try to map it all out.

A week ago this evening, the county legislature voted, in a refreshingly bipartisan fashion, to advance a local law that would affix the label “vital function” to the county developing and managing affordable housing. The county’s pilot projects in this regard are in the greater Kingston metroplex. (That’s a fancy, and marginally shorter, way to say “the City of Kingston, Town of Ulster and Port Ewen” though a good argument could be made for what we think of as “our community” being wider: i.e., the confines of the Kingston City School District. But that’s a whole ’nother editorial.)

The big county project is the one up on Golden Hill, where the old jail will be replaced with 160 units of affordable housing at the site. Eighty units in one building would be set aside for senior citizens; the remainder of the units would be in four townhouse-style buildings on the property. In Kingston’s past, we may well have seen stiff resistance by city government to a project like this, but in Kingston present, it has the zoning changes it needs and planning board approval, so 2023 should see substantial progress toward completion.

Much smaller in footprint but large on symbolism is the county’s other Kingston housing endeavor: Fixing up the old Elizabeth Manor boarding house, once the housing of last resort in Kingston, into emergency housing for the homeless, with families prioritized. Paid for with federal pandemic relief aid, a request for proposals from those wanting to run the place went out last week. Again, 2023 should see a lot of progress toward bringing the Manor online to serve people safely and with dignity.

The new and improved Elizabeth Manor is not enough to replace the capacity of Chiz’s Heart Street, which was the housing of absolute last resort in Kingston until it closed two years ago after a fire that was determined to be arson. (No arrests were ever made in the case.) While many who lived at Chiz’s, some deceased, others drifted (or pushed) out of the area, won’t benefit from it, the effort by local NGOs, RUPCO, Family of Woodstock and Catholic Charities of Orange, Sullivan and Ulster to convert the former Ramada/Quality Inn in the Town of Ulster into 81 housing units of permanent supportive housing will help others in the same very leaky boat. We don’t have a good fix on that project’s timeline, but there’s still a lot of 2023 to work with.

For 2024 and beyond, County Executive Jen Metzger in her State of the County Address announced the creation of the Ulster County Housing Trust and Land Bank, which will have $15 million to, Metzger said, "make a meaningful impact on housing options for our residents now and in the future." She noted that Tompkins County (where Ithaca is) has used a similar approach and it's worked. "[The Tompkins County] Community Housing Development Fund has supported the development of over 800 units of new housing that people can afford," Metzger told her audience in Ellenville, "with an average per unit investment by the fund of only $7,000. And the best part: in exchange for county support, these homes must remain affordable for at least 50 years." Sounds good to us.

From the County Office Building on Fair Street in Uptown, we now head east to City Hall. Last week, the mayor announced a creative and (to us, anyway) novel plan to take the market-rate Stony Run Apartments out of the market and into the realm of workforce housing. According to the mayor, the idea is to establish a nonprofit Housing Development Trust Fund to power affordable housing at the complex. The deal would keep Stony Run, one of the city’s largest apartment complexes, rent-capped for the next 40 years.

“Under this agreement,” a City Hall press release reads, “ … all new tenants will have to meet [Area Median Income] requirements and all rents will be capped at no more than 120% AMI. The property will remain on the tax roll; no PILOT is being requested. The agreement would also require that reserve funds be set up for maintenance and repair costs.”

Even more helpful is the new zoning code’s allowing accessory dwelling units to be built by homeowners in the city’s traditional single-family neighborhoods. An increase in population density brings change, but this is an emergency, as well as an opportunity for these homeowners to make money, or bring relatives closer to home. Due to the elaborate and excruciating nature of state law, we do not expect the zoning code to be adopted this year, but we’re hopeful for 2024.

From 420 Broadway we now look north to Albany, where things are not as encouraging. To her credit, Gov. Hochul included in the state budget legislation that would allow accessory dwelling units statewide but, perhaps a little sore still from the state Senate telling her nominee for the state’s top judicial spot, Hector LaSalle, to take a hike, she dropped it when it became clear the Senate’s not having it. Seems like a lot of people like their suburbs just the way they are, lawmakers say, but as the state budget process boils down to horsetrading, maybe the ADUs will get in at the end.

In fact, the governor was in White Plains today to announce the Mid-Hudson Momentum Fund, a $150 million initiative to support mixed-use housing and infrastructure projects across the region. We think that’s a good start, but note that like many things from Albany, it comes with some catches. The major one is that the money’s only available as a 50-50 matching grant. We’d like to see more money and fewer catches, which we think will lead to a lot more momentum.

The pandemic brought trauma everywhere. In Kingston, the bill finally came due for years of talking about affordable housing but not doing enough about it. It was paid for with the pain of hundreds of displaced families and individuals. There’s still more to be done; for example, housing advocates and elected officials are gathering noon tomorrow at the County Office Building to continue their fight for statewide tenant protections that would protect the ones already in place in Kingston.

So yes, there’s a lot going on. Should it have happened sooner? Yes. But the point is that it’s happening now, in 2023. The work’s not done — it may never be done. But we’re happy to see that the public will is focused on this most fundamental public good.