Kingston’s Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) finds itself one member short after the resignation of 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, who removed him from the community development and housing committee pending his resignation from the RGB.
Shaut was concerned that the perception of a conflict of interest, if not the fact, might exist as the result of Tierney’s performing two roles concurrently.
In the interim she chose Ward 3 alder Rennie Scott-Childress, who’s not seeking another term on the council this November, to replace Tierney.
Shaut pledged Tierney would be reinstated to the committee following his resignation.
It’s the prerogative of the council president to assign and remove members from the various committees. 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 who is automatically council president.
The nine-member rent guidelines board is a state-sanctioned body which enacts rent stabilization when a municipality opts in to the Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA). Members of the RGB are recommended by the council and then formally appointed by RuthAnne Visnauskas, the commissioner of the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR).
Councilmembers are not one of the specific classes of members of the public prohibited from serving on the rental guidelines board.
Responding to the charge that the city charter does not include service on the RGB as a cause for committee disqualification, Shaut explained, “Just because something is not explicitly stated does not necessarily erase a conflict of interest, or the perception thereof.”
“I didn’t have to resign”
A first-term councilmember, Tierney was appointed to a three-year term at the formation of the rental guidelines board in August 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 not to perform both roles concurrently.
“I think everybody assumed I would just resign,” said Tierney. “And then I was told that I didn’t have to.”
City director of housing initiatives Bartek Starodaj told Tierney 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,” reported Tierney. “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 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.”
Shaut declined to describe the incidents and threats any further.
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 2022, on which the adoption of rent stabilization in Kingston was based. The next rental vacancy study is required to take place this year.
With that legal combat currently paused while waiting on appeal for the highest state court, 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 a letter that informed him of his removal, “and recent events, including city staff receiving subpoenas, make this clear.”
In December, Starodaj was the target of broad subpoenas delivered by an investigator from the office of district attorney Emmanuel Nneji. Withdrawn a week later, the subpoenas were set in motion based on the complaints lodged by one of the individuals currently suing the city over its adoption of rent stabilization.
Tierney says he’s being punished
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 its own rental vacancy study found a vacancy rate of 2.7 percent, 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 over deputy mayor Alexandra Wojcik’s objections.
Had the New Paltz village trustees gone ahead with the second housing emergency declaration in a single county, the formation of a county-wide rent guidelines board would have been triggered, providing Lanzarone and the entities he represents with a county-level opponent.
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 (AMI), 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 for tax breaks on new developments, don’t reflect the median income in the city. They say the number is drastically inflated by higher earners moving into the entire county. The federal government uses the county data to arrive at its thresholds.
The county planning department led by Dennis Doyle sided with the two alders. Mayor Steve Noble, housing director Starodaj, and the members of the city planning board disagreed.
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’s the dilemma: Either lower the definition of affordability and scare the developers away, or keep the definition in place and build units that median earners can’t afford to rent.
Tierney claims his relentless attempts to draw attention to the absurdity of calling planned developments “affordable” are what have earned him what he feels was his rebuke.
Shaut had two words to respond to the alderman’s allegation. “Absolutely not.”
Ahead of Monday night’s common council caucus, Tierney was informed he had been reinstated to the community development and housing committee.
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