Pat Courtney Strong runs a marketing firm from a building further down Broadway near City Hall and has been a major booster of the neighborhood for more than a decade. Courtney Strong described the intersection of Broadway, Henry and O’Neil Streets as a “crossroads of the city” and a high-profile corner that could lead the way in revitalizing the neighborhood. But, she said, she worries about the impact of rising residential and commercial rents on people and businesses who had called Midtown home for generations.
“It’s got to be a net positive to have a lot of activity in Midtown,” said Courtney Strong. “But I think there has to be an ongoing conversation about gentrification.”
The intersection straddles some of the poorest census tracts in Kingston and is home to many low-income families and recently arrived immigrants. Mainstay Broadway businesses include check-cashing establishments, neighborhood delis, ethnic food markets and inexpensive restaurants that cater to the existing population. Courtney Strong and others worry that without some kind of intervention, those people and businesses will inevitably be washed away by the tide of new investment and wealthier residents.
The housing nonprofit RUPCO recently converted an old factory building on Cornell Street into live/work space for low-income artists, and plans to build another mixed-income, mixed-use building on Cedar Street at the site of an old bowling alley. But the affordable housing projects can accommodate just a fraction of Midtown residents who face displacement by surging rents. Noble said he takes the threat of gentrification seriously and would work to prevent widespread displacement of existing residents and businesses. Noble pointed to the city’s home ownership program, which provides education and assistance to residents trying to move from rental to owned housing in Midtown.
Other anti-gentrification policies could come as the city moves ahead with an overhaul of its 1960s-era zoning code. New York City and some 300 other communities across the country have adopted “inclusive zoning” ordinances to offset the impact of gentrification. The laws typically provide incentives or impose requirements for developers of high end residential properties to set aside units for lower income tenants. Noble said he believes similar regulations should be part of the discussion of the new city zoning code.
“We want to see economic development in Midtown, but we also want it to still be affordable to people making 80 percent of [area median income] or 30 percent,” said Noble. “Right now we don’t have all the tools to do that on a large scale.”
