The opening of the 164-unit Golden Hill affordable housing complex, scheduled for early next year, will mark the first major test of a little-known city policy aimed at stemming the tide of displacement of Kingston residents by rising rents and a tight housing market. A voluntary “municipal preference policy” adopted by developers in exchange for a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement will ensure that 70 percent of units at the complex will go to current or recently displaced city residents.

The municipal preference policy was developed by the city’s Office of Housing Initiatives and adopted back in 2022 after extensive vetting by the state’s Division of Homes and Community Renewal. The policy uses a points-based system to prioritize applicants for affordable housing units. Current city residents or people who already work or intend to work at jobs that require them to spend 75 percent of their work hours in Kingston get three points. Two points are awarded to applicants who previously resided in the city for at least three months during the past three years. Domestic violence survivors and the disabled are awarded one point under the system. Participating housing providers then use the points to develop a priority list for affordable units with highest-scoring applicants at the top.

The policy is voluntary, but the Common Council may condition benefits, like a PILOT agreement or use of city-controlled grant funds, on its adoption. In addition to Golden Hill developer Pennrose, local housing nonprofits RUPCO and the Kingston City Land Bank have adopted the policy for upcoming projects to rehabilitate vacant properties for sale at below-market rates to low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers. City Director Housing Initiatives Bartek Starodaj said the policy is intended to help out locals most impacted by Kingston’s housing crisis.

“First and foremost, we wanted to make sure that any new housing developed in the city prioritized those members of the community that have been on the front lines of the housing emergency,” said Starodaj.

Policies that give preference to locals in affordable housing are legally tricky since they can run afoul of fair housing laws. New York City recently dramatically scaled back a neighborhood-based preference policy for affordable housing to settle a lawsuit that argued the rules effectively reinforced existing patterns of racial segregation. Similarly, the Village of Great Neck on Long Island was forced to settle a lawsuit alleging that the majority-white town’s municipal preference policy created illegal barriers to minorities in more diverse areas of Nassau County moving there. To win approval from DHCR, Kingston officials had to demonstrate that the city’s policy would, by contrast, help members of the city’s disproportionately minority low-income community who might otherwise be forced out by gentrification.

“What the City of Kingston’s policy accomplishes is the opposite of what most municipalities attempt [with housing preference policies],” said Kingston Corporation Counsel Barbara Graves-Poller.

Mayor Steve Noble said the municipal preference policy is one of a number of initiatives the city has undertaken to address a housing crunch that began in the late 2010s and reached crisis proportions during the pandemic as waves of wealthy downstate residents flooded into Kingston, sending rents and home prices soaring. Noble said the lack of affordable housing not only puts longtime city residents in danger of displacement, but threatened to become a drag on Kingston’s economy, which relies heavily on relatively low-wage jobs in the hospitality, tourism and arts sectors.

“You have people who work here but can’t afford to live here — that happens all the time in the service sector and arts and culture,” said Noble. “We’re hopeful [the municipal preference policy] will help make sure that someone who has some connection to Kingston will have a better shot at getting a place to live than someone who doesn’t know where Kingston is.”