State Senate Housing Chair Brian Kavanagh, center, and Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, at podium, join housing advocates in calling for updates to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act in 2025.
Will Waldron/Times Union
ALBANY — In 2019, New York passed a law allowing upstate municipalities to adopt rent stabilization protections that were previously limited to New York City.
Housing advocates have welcomed the new tools to fight housing insecurity. Six years later, despite a wide push to adopt the measure, the Hudson Valley city of Kingston remains the only municipality to adopt rent control measures in upstate.
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This month, the state Assembly’s Housing Committee will hear from local officials about why more municipalities have not adopted rent stabilization measures despite rising rents statewide.
“I want to gauge how strong it is, and whether there are things that would make it easier for localities to accept,” said Assemblywoman Linda. B. Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Housing Committee.
After winning a lawsuit in which a court upheld Kingston’s decision to reduce rents in certain buildings, the city is now weighing whether to scale back protections after a vacancy study exceeded New York’s threshold to declare a housing emergency.
Rent control hurdles
Advocates of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 say the law created burdensome thresholds that hinder rent stabilization. If a study finds the vacancy rate in those buildings is less than 5% a city can declare a housing emergency and set up a rent stabilization board that can set limits on future rent increases.
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In August, a study completed by the city used a new approach to improve its data. The analysis looked at rental housing across the city between April and June. It found that the vacancy rate in properties protected by the law was 7.04%, exceeding the 5% threshold for declaring a housing emergency.
The Emergency Tenant Protection Act applies to buildings with more than six units built before 1974, when the state Legislature enacted the legislation in response to what lawmakers said were excessive rents that were creating a public housing emergency. Initially, the act applied only in New York City and Nassau, Rockland and Westchester counties. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 made the earlier legislation applicable to any city, town or village in the state.
But supporters of the legislation and landlords have been at odds over the formulas used to determine vacancy rates and declare a housing emergency.
“Not only is it onerous and difficult, it also created a vulnerability that landlords have exploited,” said Ritti Singh, a spokeswoman for Housing Justice for All, a statewide coalition that has supported tenant-friendly policies and organized local groups to advocate for “good cause” eviction and rent stabilization.
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Upstate landlords have launched legal challenges against municipalities, often targeting the vacancy studies that they contend are flawed. Courts overturned studies in Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, but upheld Kingston’s in June.
The legal challenges brought by the Hudson Valley Property Association created “a chilling effect” on communities who may want to opt-in to the state’s rule, said Singh. Richard Lanzarone, the association’s executive director, did not respond to a request for comment.
Other cities have struggled as well. Last year, Albany’s vacancy study found that rates were too high for rent stabilization. Albany’s study also suggested that there is still a housing crisis in the city, just not one eligible for rent stabilization, because the average building was far too old to qualify for the state law.
Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo have also pushed for vacancy studies. Rochester’s vacancy study did not meet the vacancy threshold laid out in the law. Housing activists complained that the results were skewed because only 37% of landlords responded.
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“I think localities may have wanted to see what happened after we passed it,” Rosenthal said. “COVID changed a lot of things and the cost of living has gone up enormously everywhere, as has the lack of housing, in general. A lot of the people who hold sway in counties, cities and villages are property owners and they’re not in favor of it.”
Kingston at a crossroads
Kingston regulates nearly 980 units across 55 buildings, or about 20% of the city’s apartments.
Earlier this month, Kingston’s Common Council scheduled hearings in November, with the goal of voting in December on whether the housing emergency will continue.
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Bartek Starodaj, Kingston’s director of housing initiatives, has recommended that city officials continue the housing emergency, but for buildings with more than 22 units built before 1974. Tenants in smaller buildings would lose state protections should city leaders adopt Starodaj’s recommendations.
“Kingston was the first to take advantage of some of the 2019 reforms,” Starodaj told the Times Union. “But it’s still a law created for New York City and its focus on larger buildings. It’s also the administration of the program that is very much New York City’s focus because state management is downstate. The state may need to take a step back itself and figure out how to actually make this work for more communities, should they think it’s a relevant tool.”
Common Councilwoman Michele Hirsch, a supporter of rent stabilization, said she does not see protections being removed entirely. She opposes narrowing coverage and instead wants the state to expand the size and age of buildings eligible under the law, noting that most upstate housing is older and smaller than New York City’s.
Pushback and proposed fixes
Tenant advocates have criticized Kingston’s most recent vacancy study, saying that it relied on flawed data provided by landlords, WAMC Public Radio reported.
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State Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, a Kingston Democrat, also blasted the study in an email to the Times Union, calling the current opt-in process “completely arbitrary and broken,” and saying it ignores residents’ needs as rents soar.
Hudson Valley rents have outpaced wages; in Ulster County, the average rent gap grew $388, or 59%, from 2020–2025, according to Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, a nonprofit research group.
With vacancies at 7%, Kingston is deemed ineligible. “Absolute nonsense,” Shrestha said, adding that the 5% threshold ignores the real crisis.
Shrestha and state Sen. Brian Kavanagh proposed a bill letting municipalities use public data, like eviction rates, instead of vacancy studies. That legislation, dubbed the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act, would have also let municipalities set building-size thresholds and cover buildings over 15 years old, instead of the 1974 cutoff. It stalled in committee.
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Shrestha said she is thrilled that Rosenthal has scheduled a hearing this month.
“I hope it illuminates what unnecessary hurdles we have imposed on localities outside of New York City who want to protect their residents with rent stabilization,” she said.