Lawmakers postpone request to spend on study
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> City lawmakers are holding off on a request to spend $32,000 to study Kingston’s vacancy rate in certain rental buildings until they can get more information about how the work would be done.
At a meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 14, the Common Council’s Finance and Audit Committee tabled a request from Mayor Steve Noble to transfer $32,000 from the city’s contingency fund to pay the Center for Governmental Research of the city of Rochester to do the study.
The motion was made by Alderman Tony Davis, DWard 6, who said the matter should be tabled until the committee could get more information or have someone from The Center for Government Research appear before lawmakers to answer questions.
“To just shell out $32,000 and not have these questions answered is not in the best interest of our constituents in the city of Kingston,” Davis said.
Among the questions aldermen had was whether the study would cost more if it took longer for the Center for Government Research to contact landlords to verify any vacancies in their properties. There was also a question of how the vacancy rates would be verified.
In a letter, the mayor said the city has the ability to opt into the recently amended state Emergency Tenant Protection Act.
“In order to consider this, the city of Kingston would need to conduct a vacancy study of rental buildings built before 1974 and that contain six or more units,” Noble wrote. “The study must show a vacancy rate of less than 5 percent in order for the city to enter the program.”
Noble said he released a request for proposals last month and selected the Center for Government Research as the firm to complete the study.
Alderman Patrick O’Reilly, a non-enrolled voter who represents Ward 7, asked whether the city’s Building Safety Department could do the vacancy study in-house.
“I don’t know how we would accomplish that, especially with the workload we have now,” said Steve Knox, the city’s building safety director.
In early May, the council adopted a memorializing resolution that called on lawmakers in Albany to strike geographic restrictions from New York’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 so local governments could take an active role in addressing the cost of rental housing and provide rental rights to tenants.
The act, which was set to expire this year before the state Legislature took action, provides protections, including rent stabilization, under which landlords are subject to regulated rent increases and tenants have the right to renew leases, according to the city’s resolution.
Before being amended, the act only applied to New York City and municipalities in Rockland, Westchester, and Nassau counties.