Kingston renter Delores Bernel told Spectrum News on Wednesday that many of the city's landlords have abused and skirted the law to put the squeeze on tenants like her.

"By the time you pay your rent and your light bill, you don't have anything left," Bernel said outside her one-bedroom Midtown apartment. "And don't go to Social Services to apply for food stamps, because you know what they'll tell you? You make too much money."

New York state lawmakers are trying to bring some relief.

Leaders of both chambers said on Tuesday evening a deal on a package of tenant-protection bills was reached, and will see a vote on Friday, one day before previous regulations are due to expire.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was critical of the legislature's process at a press conference on Wednesday but said unequivocally, "I will sign it."

The package includes a measure that would repeal the "vacancy bonus" — a landlord's ability to increase a unit's rent by 20 percent once it is vacated.

It also includes a measure to bar landlords from offering a preferential rent  — a rent lower than the standard legal rent but then raising it to an unattainable level in the tenant's next lease. Under the sweeping new regulations, the tenant would be guaranteed the preferential rent during the whole time the tenant is living in the unit.

There are also going to be new limits on how much a landlord can increase rent due to building improvements. Until now, landlords have been allowed to raise rents by six percent following such an improvement. The new legislation would lower that limit to two percent.

"Everything has to be balanced," said Kingston landlord Carla Bridges, of the overall effort to afford dignity to tenants while also keeping landlords in business.

Bridges — whose family owns five properties in the area — supports the changes, but said imposing rules on tenants and landlords is just a small step in solving a big-picture problem.

During an interview in Midtown Kingston on Wednesday, she told Spectrum News tenants need wages high enough to afford rent and landlords need tax relief.

She said the yearly tax bill for just one of her family's properties is about $30,000.

"The biggest thing is the taxes are so high," Bridges said, "regardless of what the problems are, we have to have rents over the market rate and over the value so you can afford taxes to be here."

Any municipality with a vacancy rate of less than five percent can opt in to these new rent control measures.

In Kingston, Common Council Majority Leader Rennie Scott-Childress did not say right away that he wants the city to use these "tools," only that he is pleased with leaders in Albany.

"I'm looking forward to seeing this pass," Scott-Childress said when reached by phone Wednesday afternoon. "And I look forward to having these tools, should we want to use them."

One controversial item housing activists had been lobbying for, but did not get, was a "good cause" eviction law. It would have only allowed landlords to evict tenants for reasons listed in that particular bill.

Despite the plan for new restrictions that has infuriated landlord advocacy groups, a landlord will still be able to evict a tenant for any reason.