“The Kingston Common Council opposed the efforts of the largest private apartment complex in the city, Stony Run, to be exempted from rent regulations, Tuesday night, when the alders voted 9 to 0 to send a memorializing resolution to the state agency responsible for approving, or rejecting, the petition.
Lawyers for Stony Run — Belkin, Burden and Goldman — claim that the transfer of ownership of the for-profit apartment complex to a non-profit entity, qualifies the apartments for exemption.
The non-profit entity to which the apartment complex was transferred, Workforce Housing HFDC, was created as part of a deal brokered by Kingston Mayor Steve Noble — and signed off on by the common council — in which Stony Run agreed to rent apartments in income-restricted tiers known as ‘workforce housing’ for the next 40-years.
Shifting ownership to the non-profit immediately secured Stony Run 35.4 million in loans from Fannie Mae.
Skirmishing in the courts with the City of Kingston, Belkin, Burden and Goldman have also spent the last three years representing the Hudson Valley Property Owners’ Association in a gambit to have rent regulations eradicated entirely.