Mayor Steve Noble is asking the Common Council to pass a package of legislation aimed at protecting tenants and incentivizing the creation of private-sector affordable housing. The legislative request comes after lawmakers in Albany approved a number of measures as part of the state budget process that offer new tools for upstate communities to address the housing affordability crisis.

Among Noble’s requests is for the council to opt in to the state’s new Good Cause Eviction law. The law, which was pushed by Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha and other members of the state’s progressive legislative caucus, is intended to protect tenants from arbitrary evictions and predatory rent hikes. The law covers all five boroughs of New York City while allowing upstate municipalities to opt in.

The law gives tenants the right to renew their leases and allows them to contest evictions based on non-payment if their rent was increased by more than 5 percent plus inflation in a year. The law also forbids arbitrary evictions in cases where tenants have paid rent, abided by lease agreements and have not engaged in illegal activity at the property. Residential units built after 2009 are exempt from the law for 30 years, while owner-occupied dwellings with 10 units or fewer and properties covered by the Emergency Tenant Protection Act or other regulatory agreements are exempt entirely.

In 2022, Kingston lawmakers passed a local version of Good Cause Eviction only to have to rescind the law after state courts ruled that it improperly infringed on state housing law. Opponents of the statewide legislation warn that it will make the affordability crisis worse by creating a disincentive for the creation of new housing in Good Cause jurisdictions and encouraging landlords to automatically increase rent by the maximum amount allowable each year. Critics also say that the new law will make evicting problem tenants a more lengthy, difficult and expensive process.

But Noble defended the law as necessary to protect tenants from arbitrary eviction and massive, unjustified rent hikes.

“I urge the Kingston Common Council to pass Good Cause Eviction legislation,” Noble said. “We are in the midst of a housing crisis, and I believe passing Good Cause Eviction will not only help protect tenants, it will also be beneficial for our city, homeowners and neighborhoods, and good landlords. Everyone deserves a safe, secure place to live, and Good Cause Eviction gives tenants the power to demand safe living conditions without fear of retaliation.”

While the Good Cause Eviction law is aimed at protecting tenants, another piece of legislation requested as part of Noble’s housing plan would create a new tax incentive for private-sector developers to create new mixed-income housing. The tax break would automatically apply to any new residential or mixed-use project built on a vacant or underutilized site with at least 10 units, of which at least 25 percent are affordable to people making between 60 and 80 percent of the Area Median Income. Developers of eligible properties would be fully exempt from property taxes during construction. The tax break would then decline by 4 percent each year over 25 years.

Noble said he expects the law will provide added incentives to private-sector developers to create moderate income housing for the “missing middle,” while easing the burden of new affordable housing mandates contained in the city’s recently adopted “Kingston Forward” zoning code. Noble added that the law would provide an alternative to payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) deals given on a case-by-case basis to developers. By providing a predictable and standard tax break, the mayor said, the city could avoid controversies over PILOTs like the one that roiled the approval process for the mixed-use Kingstonian project.

“This is state-supported, every community can do it and there’s very clear rules,” said Noble. “I think that helps provide an even playing field for all of the private developers who are trying to build housing in our community.”

In order for developers to receive the full benefit of the program, Ulster County and the Kingston City School District, which levy their own property taxes, would need to adopt similar legislation. Noble said that he hoped having the Common Council take the lead in the effort would encourage county lawmakers and school board trustees to sign on.

“I’m hopeful that because of our clear need to build housing in Kingston and because we want to have more people living in Kingston that the school district and the county will be supportive,” Noble said.

The third piece of Noble’s legislative package would create a more robust tax break for builders of accessory dwelling units. ADUs are individual housing units either built into the envelope of or sharing a parcel with a single-family home, like a basement apartment or a backyard bungalow. Noble and members of the council have touted ADUs as a way to provide affordable housing units while offering homeowners a source of additional income. Provisions in the Kingston Forward code incentivize the creation of ADUs while the city, working with Ulster County, offers grants to income-eligible property owners to build them. Local legislation enabled by the new budget bill would allow the value of an ADU to be exempted from property taxes for the first five years, with the exemption declining annually before sunsetting 10 years post-construction.

The legislative request is the latest effort by the city to incentivize the creation of new affordable housing in Kingston. In addition to a mandate that developers set aside 10 to 20 percent of units for affordable or workforce housing, depending on the size of the project, the code also provides “density bonuses” that allow developers to exceed height restrictions in a given zone in exchange for going above and beyond the affordable housing mandate.