Kingston board adopts state’s first rent-reduction guidelines

Brahvan Ranga, political director of For the Many, said the victory took months of organizing and a lot of research.

“A June study found that a vacancy rate within eligible apartments is 1.57%, which shows that Kingston had a housing emergency and the mayor and the common council declared that, and then the board was created to kind of stabilize rents in the ETPA-eligible buildings,” Ranga said, referring to Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

Ranga said his organization spoke to several tenants who shared the same problem with their rent being too high.

“We’re hearing again and again from people that their rents had spiked. Some have doubled in recent years. So, this reduction was a one-time correction to all of that rent gouging after years and years, and this is going to have an effect of like helping tenants stay in their homes,” said Ranga.