The other day, a member of your Editorial Team was speaking with a Long Islander who asked, “What are the top three stories in Kingston right now?"

With only a brief pause for drama, the team member replied, “Housing, housing and housing.”

Indeed, since we began Kingston Wire four years ago, housing has been the number one driver of readership and has changed the course of Kingston history. A city that used to be where people went for affordable housing is now one of the priciest places to live in the state. Costs on the open market for Kingston and Ulster County housing do not seem to be going down anytime soon; according to the real estate app Zillow, they expect “Kingston, NY” — which probably means the whole county, as that’s how it’s statistically modeled by the federal government — to be the second-strongest appreciator in price in the country in 2025 at 6.1 percent. (A jaunty Editorial Team salute to our friends at Space Commune for posting the link on Monday.) First is Atlantic City at 6.5 percent; we’re actually tied with Augusta, Maine at 6.1 percent. On the other end of the scale, Louisiana has the top three places where housing prices are predicted to fall the most: Lake Charles (-7.8 percent), Houma (-5.8 percent) and Lafayette (-4 percent). The Bayou State actually has six of the bottom 10: New Orleans, (-3.8 percent), Shreveport (-2.9 percent) and Hammond (-2.9 percent). We can’t speak to exactly why this is, but if you can stand the summers and the occasional mega-hurricane, New Orleans is a great place to live.

The Kingston and Ulster County governments deserve a great deal of praise for devoting funds and energy to building new affordable housing, and many of us also deserve praise for making it clear to our elected officials that creating housing should be a top priority. Suffice to say, it’s not like that everywhere in the Hudson Valley.

But there’s a discussion among city lawmakers about a key federal economic indicator and the influence it has on determining just how affordable housing is. It’s Area Median Income, and what it’s supposed to represent the income figure in the dead center of the earning continuum: there are the same amount of people who make more than the AMI and those who make less. In our case, the “area” is the whole county and it’s at $78,200 for one person and $117,200 for a family of four. (Our apologies if this number makes you feel poor; it makes us feel poor too, so you are not alone.)

The AMI is used to calculate eligibility for affordable housing. The new city zoning code pegged figures of 80 percent of AMI for “affordable” housing and 120 percent for “workforce” housing, along with the provision that a renter should pay no more than 30 percent of what they make on the rent. That provision is important, as it dictates how much rent a person in affordable/workforce housing is going to pay. The higher the AMI limits are, the more rent will be collected. Lowering those figures would therefore have the opposite effect. As things stand now, we’re justified in putting the word “affordable” in quotes: monthly rent for a one-bedroom “affordable” apartment is, according to city numbers, $1,675. It’s $2,514 for “workforce” housing.

Two members of the Common Council, Alderman Michael Tierney of the Second Ward and Alderwoman Michele Hirsch of the Ninth, are trying to make a big change to those numbers. Citing the lack of affordable housing people can actually afford at rents determined by 80 percent/120 percent AMI, they want to lower them to 50 percent and 80 percent respectively. That would make a substantial difference: The rent for a one-bedroom “affordable” unit would drop to a svelte $1,036 a month; the same “workforce” unit would rent for a slimmed-down $1,675.

Hirsch, Tierney and housing activists say the change in a common-sense adjustment that takes into account the reality of what people of limited means can and should pay for rent. But opinions are split: the Ulster County Planning Board favors the cuts, but the Kingston Planning Board does not. Also in the “no” camp is Mayor Steve Noble, who makes an important point when he says lowering the AMI percentage and therefore the rent collected from affordable housing would take away the fiscal incentive to create any.

Ah, the irony in that: if you make housing truly affordable, you make it not worth anyone’s while to build any more of it. Affordable housing these days is born of a polycule made up of government, not-for-profits like RUPCO and private developers. Through an alchemy of subsidies, tax credits and yes, money tenants pay, developers are incentivized enough to take part. Recalibrating the recipe could throw it off enough that the private sector will use its resources elsewhere and on other things. Could a government increase its spending to make up for the lower rents? Theoretically, yes. Would it? Depends on the government, and the circumstances. Both city and county governments have lived for the past several years high on the hog of strong sales tax receipts and generous pandemic money from Washington. The pandemic money is almost all gone and sales tax receipts could diminish, leaving our recently expanded governments in a tight spot with little to spare for housing issues. But considering the support affordable housing has around here, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Kingston Housing Authority is tasked with something it hasn’t done in decades: unilaterally build a city-owned housing project.

This is a matter which needs to be thoroughly thought out and talked about, so we’re looking forward to the Dec. 18 City Hall public hearing on it. (It’s at 5:30 p.m., if you’re the planning-ahead type.) Your Editorial Team is withholding our judgment pending more information and rumination, but it’s giving us the same uneasy feeling in our innards as a game of chicken: You have to draw the line somewhere, but how low can you draw it before you end up in a crash? Time will tell as we all continue to wrestle with the many issues surrounding Kingston’s top three stories: Housing, housing and housing.