State court upholds Kingston’s declaration of a housing emergency

On Friday, February 10, state Supreme Court judge David Gandin dashed the hopes of a consortium of landlords seeking to overturn the July 28, 2022 Kingston Common Council declaration of a housing emergency in Kingston by attacking the vacancy study upon which it was based.

The 1974 Emergency Tenants Protection Act (ETPA) allows some municipalities to declare a housing emergency when the vacancy rate in their apartment buildings of six or more units built before that year falls below five percent. When that occurs, a local rental guidelines board can issue recommendations to address the housing shortage.

Serious legal firepower appears to have gained entry into the lawsuit. A motion to intervene filed on behalf of four additional parties, having gone unopposed, has now been granted by the judge. Activist groups Citizen Action of New York and For The Many have joined the fray on the side of the defendants, guaranteeing their strident legal participation should the landlord group appeal to a higher court.

These two groups were not altogether happy with the Gandin ruling. “We are pleased that the court upheld the city’s enactment of rent stabilization and the underlying vacancy study,” they said in a joint statement. “However, we are disappointed that the rent guidelines board’s historic 15 percent rent reduction remains blocked. Over 1200 renter households have been denied the relief they deserve, and will continue paying unaffordable rents for the foreseeable future.”