FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 27, 2026

Mayor Noble Announces ADU Expo Panels & Vendors

Kingston ADU Expo to Be Held on April 10

KINGSTON, NY – Mayor Steven T. Noble is pleased to announce that approximately 25 vendors will be participating in the City’s first Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Expo on Friday, April 10, 2026, at the Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center.

The ADU Expo, a collaboration between the City of Kingston, the Kingston Housing Task Force, and Ulster County, is a free event with vendors, architects/designers, financial institutions, City staff from the Housing Initiatives and Building Departments, staff from the Ulster County Planning Department, and more.

Mayor Noble said, “The ADU Expo will connect homeowners and residents interested in ADUs with a variety of builders, architects, designers, and policymakers. Kingston was one of the first municipalities in the state to implement tax breaks for building ADUs and launched an ADU design contest, the winner of which provides Kingston residents with a permit-ready building plan for their own backyard ADU. In 2025, the City approved 15 accessory dwelling units – creating density in a manageable amount of time. I encourage anyone interested in ADUs as a housing solution to attend this unique event.”

Accessory Dwelling Unit Expo

April 10, 2026

12:00pm – 6:00pm

Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center

Free to attend, registration requested

Speaker Schedule

12:30pm          “Neighborhood Embedded Units: Rethinking ADUs Through Policy, Design, and Community” John Fry, AIA, and Jaclyn Tyler, AIA , Nexus Creative Design

1:30pm            “Building a Better ADU: How Digital Coordination Prevents Costly Mistakes” John Olsson, Rootd Modular Homes

2:30pm            “Building SMART-ly” Brian Baer, The Elevated Studio

3:30pm            “Healthy Materials for ADU Design”  Ines Yupanqui, A Space Unfolds Architecture 

4:15 pm           “L-ADU: Overview of the Winner of the City of Kingston’s ADU Design Competition” Alessandro Roffini, AIA, CPHD, Founder & Principal DEMO Architecture

5:00 pm           “ADU Plus One Grant Program” Daniel Kilpatrick and Faith Moore, RUPCO

Participating vendors include Farrell Contracting, ThornHaus Construction, minimax, Brad's Barns / Catskill MT. Cabins, Hudson Valley Modular Homes LLC, Apex Modulars, Modern Shacks, ECHO Building Systems, Rondout Natural Builder llc, Rootd Modular Homes, and OneBuild.

Participating architects/designers include A Space Unfolds Architecture, Williams ReCraft, Mark Hinchcliff Design, The Elevated Studio, Nexus Creative Design, DEMO Architecture, and Lockwood Architecture PLLC

Participating financial institutions include Ulster Savings Bank, Rondout Savings Bank, and United States Senate Federal Credit Union.

Participating non-profits include Taproot Community Land Trust, RUPCO, and HomeShare Ulster County.

Additionally, the City of Kingston Building Department will be at the Expo from 1-4pm. The City of Kingston Office of Housing Initiatives will be present throughout the duration of the Expo.

Attendance is free, but registration is recommended. To view additional information about the speaker schedule and to RSVP, click here.

“I’d like to thank Ulster County and the Kingston Housing Task Force for their partnership in making this first-ever ADU Expo possible. To my knowledge, this is the first event of its kind in New York State. The interest from attendees and vendors shows that there is significant interest in accessory dwelling units as one solution for our housing shortage,” said Bartek Starodaj, Director of Housing Initiatives.

The term ADU includes all forms of additional units on residential properties and may be either attached to the primary residence (e.g., basement apartment) or detached from the primary residence (e.g., garage conversion, cottage). Among many other benefits, ADUs can provide rental income to homeowners and offer an affordable way for renters to live in residential neighborhoods or can help older residents age in place.

In 2023, the City of Kingston legalized ADUs citywide with its new form-based zoning code, and launched an ADU design competition to provide a free, permit-ready ADU blueprint for Kingston residents. In 2024, the City of Kingston was the first municipality statewide to implement a tax break for new accessory dwelling units, and was joined by Ulster County in 2025. Kingston homeowners have also benefited from RUPCO’s ADU Plus One Program, which provides grants to low-moderate income property owners to create new ADUs.