Suffolk Closeup: New York’s housing crisis — Part II

In announcing her “New York Housing Compact” in her State of the State address at the start of this year, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) unveiled a plan setting what she termed “the ambitious goal” of building “800,000 new homes over the next decade.”

Under the plan, “every single locality across the state will have a target for building new homes. Upstate, the target is for the current housing stock to grow by 1% every three years. Downstate, 3% every three years.”

She said “many localities are already hitting” state housing targets. “This is not a one-size-fits-all approach,” she added. “Local governments can meet these targets however they want and shape the ways they expand building capacity, such as redeveloping old malls and office parks, providing incentives for new housing production or updating zoning rules to reduce barriers.”

The governor said “localities will get help from the state to accomplish this shared objective. We will offer substantial new funding for infrastructure, like schools, roads and sewers needed to support growing communities. And we will cut red tape to allow projects to move forward quickly, while still protecting the health, safety and environment of our communities.”

“But,” she declared, “when communities haven’t made good-faith efforts to grow when proposed housing projects are languishing for no legitimate reason, the state will implement a new fast-track approval process. Because to do nothing is an abdication of our responsibility to act in times of crisis.”

“Today,” said the governor, “we say no more delay. No more waiting for someone else to fix this problem. Housing is a human right. Ensuring enough housing is built is how we protect that right. There’s a saying, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ And we will not waste this opportunity. We just need everyone and every community to do their part. Solving our housing crisis would be a huge step toward making New York more affordable.”

This intervention by New York State government with a “new fast-track approval process,” if there is what the state considers a lack of action, became a huge sticking point instantly.

Almost everyone agrees we have an affordable housing crisis in New York State. But there is major disagreement by government officials as to how it should be met.

Local and state lawmakers have been pressing for incentives, not mandates.

But will incentives work?

A headline last month of an article in “The Real Deal,” a publication covering the real estate industry, was: “Incentives won’t make dent in housing crisis, groups say.” It began: “The suburbs prefer carrots. That is, incentives to grow their housing stock, rather than mandates that trigger penalties if not met.” And following the Hochul announcement, the piece noted, the State Legislature advanced a measure that “offers carrots — $500 million for municipalities that meet certain housing growth targets — rather than sticks.”

Cited in the article was a 2020 report by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a joint center at New York University’s School of Law and NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service. The Furman Center in summarizing its report, titled “Ending Exclusionary Zoning in New York City’s Suburbs,” said: “New York stands alone among its peer states — coastal states with high housing costs and healthy regional economies — in giving its local governments such broad authority over local land use. The result is a state with fewer homes, more expensive rents and starker segregation than it would otherwise have. By some measures, New York has the most exclusionary zoning in the country.”

Ian Wilder, executive director of Long Island Housing Services, based in Bohemia, which says its “mission is the elimination of unlawful housing discrimination and promotion of decent and affordable housing,” supports the governor’s plan.

The “current system,” says Wilder, “gives a developer the ability to build a 13-bedroom home” — a megamansion — “but makes the builder of a 13-unit affordable housing development jump through years of expensive legal requirements to build. Yet the local officials continue to defend the home- rule zoning scheme that fails to serve our communities.

“My experience working at a housing counseling agency is that nobody comes to us looking for home-rule zoning, they’re looking for a home. Recently, I had two experiences that drove that home. I know a young entrepreneur who sold his business on Long Island and moved to Florida so he could realize his goal of owning a home by age 25. I also was at a beach cleanup recently and came across two of my neighbors discussing how an entry level worker can’t even afford a basement apartment.

“We can’t solve our housing problems by relying on the tools that caused them. Gov. Hochul has looked at the tools that other states have developed already to increase housing and forged them into a plan to address our housing crisis.”

Also backing the plan is Michael Daly, affordable housing advocate from Sag Harbor. “The New York Housing Compact will not take away local control but give local officials the tools they need to tackle the housing crisis that is happening in every town and village on Long Island” said Daly, founder of East End YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard). “Elected and appointed officials locally are handicapped today by the overly restrictive zoning rules that they inherited from previous administrations. Almost everyone says they need to do something about housing but loud and angry NIMBYs object to local zoning changes. The officials should appreciate the New York Housing Compact for the leverage it gives them to tackle the housing crisis.”