Kingston council unanimously backs resolutions urging state social housing authority, expanded rent protections

The Kingston Common Council voted unanimously Tuesday to pass two memorializing resolutions urging New York State to create a Social Housing Development Authority and to expand rent-stabilization tools under the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants (REST) Act.

The actions follow a lengthy public-comment period in which more than 30 residents, advocates and policy experts urged council members to support both measures and to cancel a local vacancy study that several speakers said could be used to deregulate rent-protected units.

The memorializing resolution for the Social Housing Development Authority (Resolution 79 of 02/2025) aims to encourage the state legislature to enact legislation that would create a public developer able to finance and build permanently affordable housing. Alderman Michael Tierney, who introduced the measure, told the council the authority would ‘‘decommodify’’ housing and allow deeply affordable units where tenants pay about 25 percent of income, and that it could deploy mixed-use and higher-density projects.

Community members spoke repeatedly about the local impacts of rising rents and vacancy-driven deregulation. Jenna Goldstein, Ulster County…