Residents appear to be feeling the squeeze and voicing their support accordingly. As a result, more than half of New York renters are rent-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent-the second-highest rate in the nation. Unsurprisingly, while the state created 1.2 million new jobs in the past decade, it created only 400,000 new housing units. New York State has never had a statewide framework for housing growth and has always been exceedingly deferential to the “home rule” of municipalities. The Compact would provide $250 million for infrastructure upgrades to support new housing, $20 million for planning capacity, $50 million for home repairs in under-resourced communities of color, as well as property tax exemptions that encourage affordable housing construction and rehabilitation. The plan also requires all communities with a rail station (the lower Hudson Valley, Long Island, and New York City) to undertake rezonings that allow for higher density housing within a half mile of the station. ( A similar “builder’s remedy” exists in neighboring Connecticut). If communities do not meet these targets after three years, proposed housing developments that meet particular affordability criteria, but may not conform to existing zoning, can take advantage of a fast-track approval process by appealing to a new State Housing Approval Board. The Compact would require every community to grow its housing stock over the next three years-by 1 percent in upstate communities and 3 percent in downstate communities-which would amount to less than 50 new homes for 80 percent of localities outside New York City. The New York Housing Compact would remove barriers to housing production, incentivize new construction, and set local housing targets across every New York community to lay the groundwork for 800,000 new homes statewide over the next 10 years, which is more or less the amount required to keep pace with job and population growth. It appears New York’s housing framework will change this year, but how and how much now depends on the raw political will of the newly-elected executive. And in any case, Hochul is standing her ground in the face of the opposition and touring the state to raise support for the Compact. Yet the legislative budgets do make room for some statewide housing changes. The wide gulf between the Governor and the legislature suggests Hochul’s New York Housing Compact as originally written will not become law. Now, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Majority Leader Carl Heastie, and the Governor-the proverbial “three people in a room” as New York politicos say-will negotiate their proposals and aim to finalize the state budget by the April 1 deadline. Led by lawmakers from these suburbs, the State Assembly and Senate each released their own budgets on Tuesday, known as “one-house” proposals, which effectively neuter Hochul’s plan. For the second year in a row, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed badly needed but politically unpopular statewide land use reforms to spur the construction of more homes, and for the second year in a row the fate of her proposal will likely be decided in the state’s enormous and provincial suburbs, including Westchester County to the north of New York City and Long Island to the east.
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