At a meeting heavily attended by tenant advocates, the city council voted unanimously to opt into the new law, which prevents landlords from evicting certain tenants without legitimate cause. It also stops landlords from implementing predatory rate hikes.
Beacon joins a string of cities that have opted in to "good cause" eviction, including Albany, Ithaca, Kingston, and Poughkeepsie. And like some of those cities, it’s not the first time they've tried it: the city adopted its own law in 2022, but it was struck down a year later.
Even so, Beacon resident and For the Many Advocate James Boyd said the short-lived law helped him during his latest lease renewal, and he expects the new version to do the same.
“My landlord, who I have a good relationship with, and who says me and my roommates are wonderful tenants, said, ‘Beacon rents are insane, I’m raising [rent] the maximum amount that I can. Hope you can stay!’" said Boyd. "And luckily we could, because of that rent cap. Otherwise I think we would have had to leave Beacon, most likely. So I urge you to pass this bill as amended.”
The new “good cause” eviction law comes by way of New York’s latest state budget. The state’s version requires cities to opt in first, and allows them to make exceptions depending on how many units a landlord has, and how much their units cost. In Beacon, the law will apply to landlords with more than one rental unit in buildings built before 2009, where tenants pay less than 345 percent of Dutchess County’s fair market rent.
Beacon resident Arthur Cowans urged the city council to go even further: he said the law should apply to all landlords, even if they only have one unit.
“There are plenty of units here in Beacon that are owned by one landlord and no more, and those people deserve the protection that this law could afford," said Cowans.
City Attorney Nicholas Ward-Willis clarified before the vote that applying the law to all landlords would open the city up to legal trouble in the future. In addition to the parameters set by the council, there are additional exemptions to the law, including condo rentals, workforce housing, and landlord-occupied buildings with fewer than 11 units.
Rich Lanzarone, executive director of the Hudson Valley Property Owners Association, contends “good cause” eviction will do more harm than good to landlords and tenants alike. The HVPOA has opposed rent control and “good cause” measures across the region. If landlords have a harder time evicting what Lanzarone calls “nuisance” tenants – those who bother their neighbors – then he suggests landlords could become pickier about who they rent to in the first place. For tenants, that would mean more hurdles to get their foot in the door.
“That 650 credit score now jumps to 720, and the standard that you need to have three times the rent, now becomes four times the rent, excluding overtime and bonuses," Lanzarone explains. "And extensive reference checking, with multiple past landlords.”
To be clear, the state still considers instances where a tenant is a "nuisance" or fails to pay rent to be a “good cause” for eviction.
Still, Lanzarone also argues the law could worsen the state’s housing crisis by discouraging development. With New York City alone projected to be short more than 470,000 units by 2032 (according to a study by the Regional Plan Association), he feels tenant advocates should focus on building apartments, not regulating them.
“Those investors, the last thing they want to do is invest in New York state," adds Lanzarone. "Even though the bill says, ‘Well, new buildings are exempt for 30 years.’ Who needs the hassle?”
Before voting on the issue, Beacon Mayor Lee Kyriacou acknowledged some of his reservations with the law. Like Lanzarone, the Democrat worries landlords will become more picky in choosing their tenants, and he also worries that including “smaller landlords” in the law will encourage them to act more like large housing developments, increasing their rent by the maximum amount allowed each year.
Kyriacou says he’d ultimately like to see more housing built, and the use of housing vouchers to help low-income residents. But in the end, he still voted “yes.”
“All that said: I’m willing to vote for this because this is the bill in front of us. While I would prefer it to be done in other ways, this is good enough," said Kyriacou.
The city of Newburgh also plans to consider "good cause" eviction in the coming weeks.
