Kingston Planning Board Vetoes Plan to Change AMI Threshold

On Nov. 17, the Kingston city planning board voted unanimously against lowering the threshold of Area Median Income (AMI) spent on rent to qualify for affordable or workforce housing. The plan was proposed by common council alders Michael Tierney and Michelle Hiersch.

The plan was proposed due to the lack of ability for those qualifying for affordable or workforce housing to actually pay for rent. Although housing was meant to be accessible to them, it was not. Concerns of development being impacted led to the plan being vetoed.  

Since the original code was proposed in Kingston, the Ulster County AMI increased by 40%, leading Tierney and Hiersch to propose a change. Supporters of the proposal included speakers from Hudson Valley’s For The Many, a nonprofit based in Poughkeepsie. 

But the concern from the board was that lowering the threshold would “stifle development,” according to board chairman Wayne Platte.

In Kingston, projects with 7-19 units require affordable units that are rented for no more than 30% of 80% of the AMI. In projects with 20 or more units, both affordable and workforce units are required and are rented for no more than 30% of 120% of the AMI. 

In New Paltz, the affordable housing clause states that applicants must earn 60% or below of the AMI in order to qualify for rentals. 15% of units in complexes with over 10 units must be designated affordable. The allocation of 15% of units was a recent change; previously, only 10% of units were required to be affordable.

There is a rent cap as well, determined by family size and income. For example, a two-person family earning 60% of the AMI would pay around $1,500 in rent, according to the Village of New Paltz Affordable Housing Board chairman Terry Dolan.

Lowering the AMI threshold walks a fine line between supporting the lower-income and stifling development that would house these lower-income communities. It is a more complex issue than meets the eye. If rents are too low, developers will not build and the underserved remain underserved.

“As the chair of the affordable housing board here in the village, you’re disappointed that another community tried to help out additional families and were unable to do so,” Dolan said. “There’s a number of complicated factors about housing. How do we make it fair for the people of America?”

But throughout Ulster County, there is an issue. The poverty rate is increasing. Rents are increasing while incomes remain stagnant. Hundreds of people are homeless, with the numbers only growing. 12% of owners and 29% of renters spend more than half of their monthly income on housing. Perhaps most importantly, houses are not being built at the same rate they were before the housing market crash in 2008. Municipalities are left stuck trying to figure out how to best serve their communities amidst a growing crisis.

One of the most complicated issues surrounding housing, according to Dolan, is its inelastic demand. Housing will always be a necessity for people, and it will always be incredibly expensive to build. Its inelasticity and cost creates a constant problem when it comes to both building housing and providing housing affordably.

There is also often a mismatch between the cost of houses being built and the price that people in the area can afford. In Ulster County, the average home sells for $425,000, but this price is astronomical to many citizens seeking housing in the county. 

“The problem is that there’s very little affordable housing for people to acquire, and very few people are building affordable housing now,” Dolan said. “We have a waiting list [for affordable housing] that people have been on for years.”

In New Paltz, there is currently no plan to expand the eligibility for affordable housing. The main reason is the fear that it would only make these waiting lists longer.  

“Truthfully, in this given climate, with whatever anybody is going to do to increase the supply of affordable housing, if we were to lower those income thresholds, I think we would probably be doing a disservice to people who apply,” Dolan said. 

Developers need an incentive to build. Most often that incentive is in the form of government subsidies. These subsidies allow them to turn out profit at the end of the project, but if rents are forced to be too low, these loans would not be enough.

“If we’re going to increase the number of people who become eligible for affordable units, we’re going to have to do something to create those units,” Dolan said. “We can’t just sit back and think that developers will do that out of the kindness of their heart. They can’t. They’re in business.”

The most important thing municipalities can do to keep rent affordable is to encourage development overall. With more developments comes more affordable housing units and lower rent overall, since there is less of a fight for housing.

“If municipalities discourage residential development, rents are going to be high and they’re going to be higher, especially in an area like New Paltz,” Dolan said. “You push one part of the housing industry, and it has an effect on another.”

In New Paltz, at the time of publication, there are only seven affordable units in the village. However, three new developments are currently  being constructed on North Chestnut Street. On top of those three, a senior, all-affordable apartment complex on South Manheim Street is also in the process of construction. 

The South Manheim complex will add 40 new affordable units and the North Chestnut complexes will add 240 units, 36 of which will be designated affordable.

“I was heartened by the fact that Kingston was looking into it, trying to do something for the people. But Kingston can’t solve this on its own. New Paltz can’t solve it on our own. New York can’t solve it on its own. If anyone’s going to solve this problem, it’s going to have to be all of us,” Dolan said.