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New York lawmakers on verge of leaving Albany without addressing housing crisis
By
David Brand
and
Jon Campbell
Published Jun 2, 2023
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By
David Brand
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Jon Campbell
Published Jun 2, 2023
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Plans from Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams to spur the creation of hundreds of thousands of new housing units are evaporating as the state legislative session draws to a close with no new measures to address worsening affordability and homelessness crises.
The bleak outlook comes five months after Hochul outlined strategies to boost housing development statewide by setting specific targets for every town and New York City community district, along with other policies to ease production or legalize additional units like basement apartments. Her plans encountered sharp backlash from suburban lawmakers and some elected officials from New York City, especially in the Assembly.
Meanwhile, efforts to strengthen tenant protections and make it harder to evict renters are also failing to gain traction in Albany despite a sustained push from advocates who continue to maintain a presence at the Capitol.
It’s all leaving New York City officials, developers and pro-housing activists scrambling to extract more modest measures from state lawmakers, like extending the deadline for the 421-a property tax break for projects already underway and lifting limits on the size and bulk of new residential buildings — measures that Hochul deemed “low-hanging fruit” last month.
But even those look unlikely to pass in the final week of the legislative session, according to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), who said he’s not “overly optimistic” the measures will be put to a vote.
“I think part of the challenge is that there's, I’d say, things that developers want, I think there's things that I'd say tenants want, and I think it's difficult. These things are all kind of connected,” Heastie said. “I don't know if it's going to be easy to pull one off and then leave everything else.”
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins offered a glimmer of hope that lawmakers could cut a deal related to housing issues before they’re scheduled to end the 2023 legislative session next week. But she acknowledged the type of wide-ranging housing plan that Hochul has been pushing will likely need more time.
“I'd like to think that we can come up with something that would be good for housing in New York before we leave. But I have nothing to report right now,” Stewart-Cousins said.
As she spoke to reporters, Stewart-Cousins brought up a possibility with much smaller ambitions: a bill to study the housing crisis and come up with potential solutions. Last year, Hochul vetoed a measure that would have set up a commission on affordable housing since it didn’t have any funding attached to it.
The apparent legislative inaction complicates the mayor’s ambitious housing goals. Adams' plan to create half a million units of housing depends on rule changes at the state level.
Adams and top city officials have urged the state to at least take up some of their proposals, like the deadline extension for 421-a — a controversial program that waives most property taxes for developers who make a portion of their units affordable to low- and middle-income renters. Developers who qualified for the benefit before it expired last year but can’t complete their projects by June 2026 will have to forgo the lucrative tax break.
Adams sent two of his top aides — Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer and outgoing housing chief Jessica Katz — to the Capitol in Albany on Tuesday to lobby for the tax break extension and a handful of other measures, where they appeared with a handful of legislative Democrats.
At a news conference in Gowanus on Thursday, Adams said losing out on the tax break will force developers to abandon housing projects with income-capped units in the recently rezoned neighborhood.
“If that step fails to take place, then we’re never going to reach the point where New Yorkers are going to be able to put a key in a lock and go inside and experience the American dream,” he said.
A document circulating among developers and real estate industry professionals counts more than 3,500 apartments, including 900 income-restricted units, in Gowanus that have broken ground but may not be completed before the 2026 deadline.
Fifth Avenue Committee Executive Director Michelle de la Uz, a former city planning commissioner who helped craft the Gowanus plan, said if Albany doesn’t extend the program, it’ll jeopardize the completion of housing developments already underway because financing and costs depend on the tax break.
“We will literally just have sites sitting vacant for years,” de la Uz said. “I understand and support the desire for a big, bold approach to affordable housing, but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Several lawmakers are calling for a package of bills that pair the pro-development approach with stronger protections for renters. Tenant groups are holding out hopes for a new law that limits evictions for rent-paying tenants who adhere to their leases without “good cause” and allows them to challenge rent increases beyond 3% in court.
Progressive lawmakers joined hundreds of tenants and activists in Albany on Wednesday to repeat their demands for the Good Cause measure, as homelessness and rents reach record highs.
"We are in the middle of a housing crisis that not only affects low-income New Yorkers, but all renters,” said Luz Rosero, president of the tenant group United Neighbors Organization. “Factors such as raising rents and lack of tenant protections have contributed to an increase in homelessness.”
At one point, the tenant advocates disrupted the state Assembly’s session on Wednesday, where they called on lawmakers to immediately pass the Good Cause bill. They launched paper airplanes from the Assembly’s visitor gallery, with the projectiles landing among staff and lawmakers below before the chamber’s sergeants-at-arms put a stop to it.
The Adams administration has resisted the measure, instead focusing on their more modest legislative goals, even as city officials say they want stronger renter protections.
Torres-Springer, who this week assumed oversight of the city’s housing agencies, said “more has to be done” when it comes to tenant protections in New York City but declined to support the Good Cause bill during a panel discussion last Thursday, echoing past statements from Adams.
“Certainly, we share the goal and we have to make sure that … there are protections that do not unnecessarily or unfairly harm smaller homeowners,” she said.
Supporters of the measure point out that owner-occupied buildings with fewer than four units are exempted in the current legislation.
Still, landlord groups have blasted the proposal, calling it an unfair form of rent control.
Greg Drilling, a spokesperson for Homeowners for an Affordable New York, said the bill’s supporters “fail to understand that reducing the number of new units created and forcing small property owners to walk away from buildings will make the housing crisis worse – not better.”
But even a measure that has broad support among tenant and landlord groups appears doomed.
The proposed Housing Access Voucher Program would create a new statewide rental assistance subsidy modeled off the federal Section 8 program, under which tenants pay 30% of the income toward rent and the government covers the remainder.
Both the Senate and Assembly included funding for the voucher program in their budget proposals earlier this year, but Hochul is not supporting the program.
And the governor may already be looking ahead to next year’s session when it comes to housing.
“There's areas where they should be less contentious. There's an opportunity to get them done, but I'm not putting everything on success in this next month,” Hochul said in May. “It's a longer-term strategy.”
Heastie agreed.
“I think when you want to do transformational change, I really think there really needs to be time for a collective buy-in,” he said. “And I'm just not sure that that was able to happen with the housing program.”
Tagged
new york state
Kathy Hochul
new york city
housing
economy
Politics
eric adams
David Brand
David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.
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Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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