In Kingston, New York, tenants say their survival depends on the city ordering a rent reduction – something that’s never been done before
that it was pulling out of New York and investing in Kingston partly to escape the negative publicity in the city. But there was another big perk, he noted: unlike apartments in New York City, none of Kingston’s were rent-stabilized.Rent-stabilization protects nearly half of New York City’s apartments, limiting their rent increases to a small percentage each year.
Those increases came even sooner than expected. Carolina Soto’s first renewal offer in 2021 came with a 10% hike, which she haggled down to 7.5%. The next August, she came home to a threatening letter taped to her door: if she signed a renewal within two weeks, Aker would only raise her rent by 18%. If not, her rent would go up by 30%. And if she didn’t sign by the fall, it would go up to $2,200 a month.
Soto was selected to join Kingston’s rent guidelines board. McKee and a crew of housing activists, including a former Bernie Sanders campaign organizer, June Nemon, organized Soto’s neighbors into a formidable tenants’ union. Wuyatta Reece, a 47-year-old nursing assistant, had been part of similar efforts in Brooklyn: “I know about going up to landlords,” she said. “I’m not afraid of them.
Rich Lanzarone says his determination to defeat rent regulation is simple: “First of all, it’s a threat to my income, a threat to my financial life.” Secondly, an unnamed Kingston official urged him last summer to “get property owners together and fight this thing”. Housing activists dismiss those arguments as fearmongering. “There’s no reason that only buildings built before 1974 should be subject to rent regulation,” says Michael McKee. Ideally, “rent regulation should be treated as a public utility, for the public good. Like how New York state regulates the price of milk. You don’t have to declare an emergency to regulate the price of electricity.”
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