KINGSTON – Ulster County State Supreme Court Justice David Gandin, Wednesday, signed an order temporarily blocking implementation of Kingston rent control as adopted by the Kingston Rent Guidelines Board.
The order “will cause irreversible harm to countless tenants in Kingston,” said Genevieve Rand, statewide housing organizer for Citizen Action of New York.
She called it “disgusting that the real estate industry funds this campaign to deter tenants from asserting their right to safe, stable housing and other cities from enacting policy to protect that right.”
She said the justice’s order “means that the renter of Kingston will lose an important step toward housing security that was legally afforded to them. Instead they will struggle with unaffordable rents now and in the future, leading to housing instability and, in some cases, homelessness.”
Rand said they are confident the decision will ultimately be upheld in court, but “it will be too late for the Kingston tenants who will have already lost their homes due to today’s injunction.”
