Kingston Common councilmember pressured to resign from Rent Guidelines Board

KINGSTON, New York January 30, 2025

The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) finds itself one member short after the resignation of City of Kingston Ward 2 Alder, Michael Tierney, on Wednesday, January 29.

Tierney whose three-year term was not up until the end of 2025 was pressured to resign by Kingston common council president Andrea Shaut.

Shaut was concerned that the perception of a conflict of interest, if not the fact, should exist as the result of Tierney's performing two roles concurrently- one as a tenant representative for the RGB, the other as a member of the council's housing and community development committee.

The nine-member rent guidelines board is a state sanctioned body which is convened in order to enact rent stabilization when a municipality opts-in to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA).

Members of the RGB are applicants who are recommended by the council and then appointed by RuthAnne Visnauskas, the commissioner of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). While specific classes of members of the public are prohibited from serving on the rental guidelines board, council members are not one of them.

Responding to the charge that the city charter does not include service on the RGB as a cause for committee disqualification, Shaut explained that, "Just because something is not explicitly stated does not necessarily erase a conflict of interest, or the perception thereof."

It's the prerogative of the Council President to assign and remove members from committees. As the alder-at-large, the role of council president automatically falls to Shaut. Common council alders do not have a say in choosing their president. Voters in all of Kingston's nine wards elect the alder-at-large.

Shaut pledged that if Tierney resigned from the RGB, he would be reinstated to the Community Development and Housing Committee. In the interim Shaut chose Ward 3 alder Rennie Scott-Childress to replace Tierney.

A first-term councilmember, Tierney was appointed to a three year-term at the formation of the rental guidelines board in August of 2002. His term would have ended this year.

While the timing of his removal from the housing committee was a surprise, Tierney said the removal itself wasn't. Numerous officials in the city administration and at least one member of the city council had attempted to warn him off from performing both roles concurrently.

"I think everybody assumed I would just resign," said Tierney. "And then I was told that I didn't have to."

The Director of Housing Initiatives for the City of Kingston, Bartek Starodaj, told him that he had reached out to the DHCR and that state agency had blessed the arrangement.

"Bartek said he would get a legal opinion from HCR. He responded a week later saying, HCR says you could still serve."

Starodaj did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In her letter sent to Tierney informing him of her decision to remove him from the committee, Shaut made reference to "recent incidents surrounding rent stabilization" and "potential threats to housing related initiatives."

Provided the opportunity for clarification, Shaut declined to describe the incidents and threats. One could presume the next rental vacancy study required to take place this year looms large in her calculus. The city has been bedeviled in the courts by a cohort of outraged landlords ever since the completion of the last vacancy study in June of 2022, on which the adoption of rent stabilization in Kingston was based.

With that legal combat currently paused while waiting on appeal for the highest court in New York State- the court of appeals- it's conceivable that further lawsuits challenging this next vacancy study could be launched before the first volley has been settled.

"The fight to protect our most vulnerable is ongoing," Shaut reminded Tierney in the letter that informed him of his removal, "and recent events, including city staff receiving subpoenas make this clear."

In December the Director Starodaj was the target of broad subpoenas delivered by an investigator from the office of the District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji. Withdrawn a week later, the subpoenas were evidently set in motion based on the complaints lodged by one of the individuals currently suing the city over its adoption of rent stabilization.

Since the formation of his advocacy group, Hudson Valley Property Owners Association, a month after Kingston's declaration of a housing emergency, executive director Rich Lanzarone has not failed to challenge any vacancy study performed anywhere in the Hudson Valley where they have been conducted- Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and Nyack- or even been discussed- New Paltz.

After the village of New Paltz's performance of their own rental vacancy study found a vacancy rate of 2.7% which legally qualified the municipality to declare a housing emergency and introduce rent stabilization, Lanzarone threatened to sue.

Led by Mayor Tim Rogers, the board of trustees backed down. New Paltz opted not to declare a housing emergency. Deputy mayor Alexandra Wojcik objected.

If the board of trustees had gone ahead, as the second housing emergency declaration in a single county, the declaration would have triggered the formation of a county-wide rent guidelines board, providing Lanzarone and the entities he represents with a county level antagonist.

For his part, Tierney believes his being removed from the housing committee had more to do with the creation and presentation of a false dilemma in order to punish him.

"I think this is entirely about Area Median Income and all of this is related to the changes Michele and I are trying to make."

Alder for ward 9 Michele Hirsch and Tierney have been the tip of the spear for those who would like to see action to redefine the city's interpretation of the word 'affordable' in relation to rental housing. The alders point out that affordability thresholds provided to the city, and relied upon by developers to receive tax breaks on new developments, don't actually reflect the median income in the city. They say the number is drastically inflated as the result of higher earners moving into the county and it's the median income for the county that the federal government uses to arrive at its thresholds. While the county planning department led by Dennis Doyle say the alders are right, mayor Steve Noble, Housing director Starodaj, and the members of the city Planning Board have all expressed fear and loathing with the alders attempts to address the discrepancy.

If the thresholds for affordability are lowered, say opponents of the recalibration, so too will be the incentives which developers attracted to Kingston are relying upon to justify the cost of building. Here then is the dilemma in a nut- either lower the definition of affordability and scare the developers away, or keep the definition in place and build units which the median earners and below won't be able to afford to rent.

Tierney says it's his relentless attempts to draw attention to the absurdity of calling planned developments affordable which have earned him his rebuke.

Shaut had two words to respond to the alderman's allegation.

"Absolutely not."

( A version of this article appeared in HV1 )