Kingston, Stony Run tenants and advocates at odds over rent rules

KINGSTON, N.Y. — City officials and the owners of Stony Run are battling tenants at the complex and tenant advocates over the future of Emergency Tenant Protection Act regulations at the building, as the owners are asking the state to remove them.

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For the Many Ulster County Organizer Jenna Goldstein also decried the move away from ETPA in an email to the Freeman.

“The regulatory agreement Aker entered into with the City states explicitly that if, and only if, rent stabilization is no longer in effect in Kingston, the ETPA-regulated units at Stony Run would be listed for rent at ‘workforce housing’ prices,” Goldstein said. “In addition to the fact that ETPA is very much still in effect in Kingston, the new rents that Aker’s nonprofit is charging at Stony Run are well above average.” …

Goldstein said that “workforce rental prices over $2,500 per month are not affordable for residents at Stony Run or in Kingston.” …

“Many Stony Run residents are on fixed incomes or retired and have been living in the complex for decades,” Goldstein said. “It is unconscionable for them to be subject to rent increases at a property that is supposedly ‘affordable.” …

“The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 clarified that ETPA is meant to apply to rental units, not to tenants,” Goldstein said. “Aker’s deregulation of Stony Run is a clear effort to circumvent rent stabilization, a law that is in place to protect tenants from exactly these sorts of landlord schemes.” …

“Aker, the company that owns Stony Run, sold the complex to itself for just $10 in order to secure $35,380,000 in low-interest, federally subsidized loans,” Goldstein said. “These loans were intended for repairs and improvements to the property, Kingston’s largest ETPA-protected complex, but nearly two years later none have been made.” …

Smith said that For the Many supported the Stony Run agreement at the time it was announced.

For the Many said the final agreement ended up containing additional terms neither or other tenants knew about in a statement on Wednesday. The statement thanked Michele Hirsch, D-Ward 9, for giving tenants a chance to even participate in the regulatory agreement between the city and Aker.

“These unreviewed terms are what have facilitated the deregulation of ETPA units at Stony Run, which For the Many opposes—and which we would have opposed when the agreement was finalized, had we seen the ultimate version beforehand,” the statement said. “We did not, and neither did the tenants who are being impacted by this deregulation. Regardless of what the final agreement says, ETPA applies to apartment units, not to the tenants occupying them.”

“ETPA is state law and cannot be superseded by a private agreement between the City and a corporation,” the organization stated.