On Friday, two families became the latest area residents to move from rental housing to their own homes with help from the Kingston City Land Bank. The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the properties at 52 Grand St. and 488 Hasbrouck Ave. marks the completion of a pandemic-era program to rehabilitate six properties held by the city for back taxes and sell them to families making less than 80 percent of the Area Median Income at below-market prices.

“I’m really excited about this day, we’ve been waiting for this for years,” said Sergio Vazquez who will soon move into his newly renovated home at 488 Hasbrouck Ave. with his wife and two sons. “Programs like this are really the only chance people like us have to have a decent home.”

Vazquez is typical of participants in the KCLB’s affordable homeownership program. An immigrant from the Dominican Republic, Vasquez has lived and raised his family in the Kingston area since 2016. In 2020, he opened Don Sergio’s barber shop on Broadway, a short walk from his new home. Despite running a successful business, Vazquez found himself priced out of a local housing market where home prices skyrocketed by 81.5 percent between 2019 and 2025 and, according to Zillow, the average home price stands at $422,944.

Vazquez and another family who purchased 52 Grand St. after being selected from eligible applicants in a lottery, by contrast paid just $149,995 — the kind of price KCLB director Mike Gilliard noted has not been seen in Kingston in decades. Both homes, long vacant and off the tax rolls, were renovated by local contractor Maeda Construction to be all-electric and energy-efficient.

“It would have been very hard for me to get my own home without something like this,” said Vazquez. “I think it’s going to help a lot of people.”

The KCLB was founded in 2018 with support from the city as part of an effort by Mayor Steve Noble to move more Kingston families from rental housing to their own homes. Noble has said that affordable home ownership programs like the KCLB help stabilize neighborhoods while giving moderate-income families an opportunity to generate wealth. On Friday, Noble praised the land bank’s efforts on the two lots which are around the corner from each other as well as a pending effort to build affordable multi-unit cooperative housing on a vacant lot adjacent to 52 Grand St.

“We are really excited that the Kingston City Land Bank has literally put a stake in this corner of Kingston,” said Noble. “We are excited to be able to continue this partnership and really revitalize this section of Kingston.”

The KCLB has renovated and returned to the tax rolls and sold 15 vacant homes held by the city for back taxes and acquired under a disposition policy that requires the nonprofit to pay off all back taxes on a property. After an initial effort funded by the NoVo in Kingston foundation renovated nine properties, the KCLB began work on acquiring and rehabbing another six as part of the “keystone” program funded through the city’s American Rescue Plan Act award and the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal.

Friday’s ribbon-cutting marked the completion of the keystone program and the final disposition of the last six properties in the KCLB inventory. But a 2023 Supreme Court ruling could complicate further efforts. The ruling, Tyler vs. Hennepin County, ruled that municipalities like Kingston may take properties for nonpayment of taxes, but if the property is subsequently sold, any profits in excess of the back taxes must be returned to the original owner.

Gilliard said that the ruling had upended efforts like the land bank’s in 12 states, including New York. Gilliard said title insurance companies are now reluctant to deal with tax delinquent properties, creating years-long delays between acquisition by the land bank and any rehab effort. Gilliard said that the ruling had called into question the fate of some 125 properties in Kingston, many of which are long-vacant and abandoned.

The KCLB is seeking workarounds and waiting for a number of legal questions raised by the Supreme Court decision to be worked out, Gilliard said. In the future, he said, the land bank could move towards a model of new construction of modular homes on vacant lots rather than more expensive renovations of existing properties. Other options, Gilliard said included buying properties on the open market or competing with house-flippers at public auctions. Gilliard said that he was confident the KCLB would, one way or another, be able to continue its mission of putting home ownership in reach for working families in the area.

“We’ve been in front of this for years, we’ve been preparing for this for years,” said Gilliard. “We’re hopeful we will be able to acquire more properties.”