Judge Halts Poughkeepsie Rent Stabilization

In a victory for local landlords, a New York state Supreme Court judge overruled Poughkeepsie’s recent rent stabilization law.

Justice Christi Acker sided with the Hudson Valley Property Owners Association on Friday, the Times Union reported. The landlord group filed a lawsuit in the summer, seeking to overturn the rent-limiting law.

Acker ruled that the rental vacancy study conducted in Poughkeepsie was flawed. Under the state’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act, to enact rent stabilization, a municipality needs to conduct a study and find a vacancy rate of 5 percent or below among eligible buildings, then declare a housing emergency.

The court ruled the consultants hired by the city to conduct the vacancy count neglected the responses of four building representatives, whose 16 vacant units would have lifted the vacancy rate above the 5 percent threshold. Further flaws noted by the court included the recording of a 0 percent vacancy rate for 13 qualified buildings that weren’t contacted, plus a failure to properly communicate the study’s intent in a round of questionnaires sent to property owners.

“Decisions to declare or end ETPA housing emergencies must be based on objective data and supported by reasoned analysis,” the judge wrote. “The housing study on which the City of Poughkeepsie relied to declare its 2024 housing emergency fell short of these requirements.”

The landlord group ran a victory lap after the judge’s ruling, while tenant advocacy group Housing Justice for All didn’t bemoan the decision so much as the process to adopt rent stabilization in the first place.

“Today’s decision is further evidence that the vacancy study process throws up arbitrary barriers to sensible policy choices and is a boon to litigious landlords,” coalition director Cea Weaver said in a statement.

Rent stabilization restricts the rent increases landlords can impose upon tenants, as well as limits owners’ ability to not renew leases. It also allows tenants to pass their renewal rights to heirs.

Poughkeepsie is not the first municipality to have its rent stabilization law thrown out because of a flawed vacancy study. It also happened in Newburgh in April. A year earlier, Kingston’s law was upheld after a legal challenge.

— Holden Walter-Warner