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FIRST CITY-WIDE RENT REDUCTION IN THE HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
UPHELD BY APPELLATE COURT  
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John Mage
March 26, 2024
MRonLine
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_ Five judge panel rules unanimously determination of Kingston Rent
Guidelines Board mandating 15% rent reduction is valid “[n]othing in
the applicable statutory language explicitly requires that the Board
adjust the rent upward rather than downward.” _

Rent strike in Sunset Park! 2012., (Photo: Michael Fleshman / Flickr
// MRonLine)

 

New York State’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 permits the
regulation of residential rents (“rent stabilization”) on the
declaration of a housing emergency in New York City when the vacancy
rate falls below 5%, or by similar declarations in municipalities in
the suburban New York City counties of Nassau, Westchester and
Rockland. A “Rent Guidelines Board” then has the power to set
guidelines for rent adjustments. Today about half of all apartments in
New York City are rent stabilized. And each year the Rent Guidelines
Board in New York City, after bitterly fought public hearings, has
allowed rent increases between one and six percent, and even on
occasion—as during the initial years of the COVID pandemic—has
frozen rents. It has never _reduced_ rents.

Kingston, county seat of Ulster County, is a port on the Hudson River
in the center of the Hudson Valley some 90 miles north of New York and
50 miles south of Albany. It had been the first capital of New York
State in 1777, and was noted for the excellence of its bar and
judiciary. Judge Alton Brooks Parker, whose career commenced as a
clerk in the Kingston law firm of Hardenbergh and Schoonmaker, was the
Democratic candidate for President in 1904, losing to Theodore
Roosevelt. Kingston prospered as the eastern terminus of the Delaware
and Hudson Canal, that linked the anthracite coal fields of
Pennsylvania with New York City. It never recovered from the closing,
due to railroad competition, of the D&H Canal in 1898. In 1900
Kingston’s population was 24,535, and today is 24,100.

In 2019 the Legislature allowed municipalities statewide to opt in to
the 1974 Emergency Tenant Protection Act upon a declaration of
emergency due to a housing vacancy rate of 5% or less. The onset of
the COVID pandemic saw a sudden flight of many New York City residents
upstate, including to Kingston. At the same time, the nationwide
process of the acquisition of rental housing by ruthless private
equity firms was underway in Kingston as well. The result was a sudden
sharp increase in rents. An official Ulster County rental housing
survey found that between 2016 and 2020, the median rent for a
two-bedroom apartment rose by nearly 50 percent
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The city of Kingston conducted a housing vacancy study that in July
2022 found that the vacancy rate for rental properties potentially
subject to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act was 1.57%, well below
the 5% threshold. The City of Kingston Common Council declared an
emergency within the meaning of the Emergency Tenant Protection Act,
effective on August 1, 2022, becoming the first municipality north of
the New York City suburbs to enact rent stabilization. A Kingston Rent
Guidelines Board was appointed, and following public meetings and
hearings on November 9, 2022 voted to require that rent charged for
one- and two-year leases commencing between August 1, 2022 and
September 30, 2023 be _reduced_ by 15% from the base rate. It was
the first city-wide legally mandated rent reduction in New York State
history.

The landlord lobby statewide was apoplectic, and a prominent landlord
law firm from New York City, notorious for its brutal and aggressive
tactics, immediately challenged the emergency declaration and the
action of the Kingston Rent Guidelines Board in the Supreme Court, the
court of general jurisdiction in New York State. In February 2023 the
Supreme Court ruled that the Common Council had properly declared a
public housing emergency, but that the rent adjustment guideline
reduction adopted by the Board had exceeded its authority under the
Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

Both sides appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court,
Third Department. On Thursday, March 21, 2024, the five judge
panel ruled
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that the November 9, 2022 determination of the Kingston Rent
Guidelines Board that mandated a 15% rent reduction is valid, noting
that “[n]othing in the applicable statutory language explicitly
requires that the Board adjust the rent upward rather than
downward.”

In New York State the Court of Appeals is the highest court, but
unanimous decisions in the Appellate Division in civil cases cannot be
appealed as of right, and leave to appeal in such cases is rarely
permitted. Nonetheless, given the formidable power of the landlord
lobby one should take nothing for granted, but it should be noted that
the New York Court of Appeals is today among the more decent and
honest courts in the country. So the outlook is good.

The credit for this outstanding achievement goes to the outraged
tenants of Kingston, who stood up to the power of grasping private
equity that has been taking over what had once been affordable housing
across the nation. And also to the organizing of tenant and activist
groups “For the Many” in Kingston itself and the state-wide
coalition “Housing Justice for All,” and to veteran New York State
tenant advocate Michael McKee whose career bridges the old-left Met
Council on Housing days of Jane Benedict and todays tenant activism.

And the small city of Kingston, for which candor requires that I admit
to having a special affection, has once again laid claim to playing an
honorable role in U.S. history. May many more municipalities follow
its example.

_[JOHN MAGE, an attorney, practiced criminal defense and international
law, and is a member of the Monthly Review
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* rent
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* Housing
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* rent reduction
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* rent stabilization
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* New York
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* New York City
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* Rent Guidelines
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* Kingston
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* Judiciary
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