Governor Hochul goes solo to kickstart affordable housing, criticizes legislature for inaction
Governor Kathy Hochul this week announced steps aimed at reducing the state’s affordable housing crisis. And she placed the blame squarely on her fellow Democrats in the Senate and Assembly for the lack of action on the crisis during the 2023 legislative session.
Hochul, in her State of the State message in January, introduced an ambitious plan to build 800,000 new housing units in the next decade.
But it failed to gain traction among Democrats in the Legislature, whose suburban members objected to a provision that would allow the state to override local zoning laws in some cases.
Hochul withdrew the proposal from the state budget. Later, Senate and Assembly leaders offered a new plan that included tenant protections like the Good Cause Eviction measure, but this time it was the governor who rejected the plan.
Hochul, announcing an executive order this week to revive plans for 8,500 units of affordable housing in Brooklyn, says the Senate and Assembly forced her hand on using the order to address the problem.
“We announced this bold plan. The Legislature was not ready for it and would not commit at the time to the transformative change that New Yorkers so desperately need and deserve," said Hochul.
Hochul’s order restarts affordable housing projects that were halted when a special tax break for developers, known as 421-a, expired in 2022. The governor, who also blamed lawmakers for letting that program run out, says the new arrangement “mirrors” what 421-a offered to developers.
“I will not wait,” Hochul said. “I'm going to do everything I can within my powers, using every tool I can find, the ones I'm announcing today and the ones we haven't even thought of yet.”
“We're going to jump-start housing now,” the governor continued.
Under the program, the state’s Empire State Development authority will purchase privately owned properties for a nominal fee, and then lease the property back to the original owners for a long-term lease term under the same terms as the original 421-a tax breaks.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, in a statement, responded to Hochul’s criticism, saying, “We still have a great deal of work ahead of us to address New York's housing crisis.”
Heastie says that means “providing tenant protections” along with “increasing affordable housing and creating more pathways to home ownership.” And he says Assembly Democrats are ready to work with Hochul to get that done.
The governor’s actions are backed by, among others, the powerful building service workers union SEIU 32BJ.
In another executive order, Hochul ordered all state agencies and authorities to take an inventory of their properties and see if any are suitable for conversion to affordable housing.
She says she’s already identified two sites, one at the former state prison in Fishkill, and another on land adjacent to the Javits Center in Manhattan.
In another action, localities can be designated a “Pro-Housing Community” if they meet certain requirements, like easing their permitting and zoning processes. In return, they will receive priority for $650 million dollars in state funding that’s available.
“We’re sending a very simple message that communities that do their part to build housing will get priority for funding over those who will not,” Hochul said.
Not everyone is happy with the governor’s actions.
State Senator Jessica Ramos tweeted that the announcement lacked any guarantee of labor standards. The Plumbers and Gas Fitters Union, in a statement, called the governor’s plan a “slap in the face” to union members, and panned the executive orders as “disappointing” “stop gap” measures that they say won’t solve the housing crisis.
The New York Building Congress, which includes major developers and related industries offered conditional support, saying, in a statement, that “even incremental progress is welcome”.
