New York Governor Kathy Hochul said her ambitious housing plan, which sparked a severe backlash in New York City’s suburbs, is no longer part of the protracted negotiations over the state’s $227 billion budget.
(Bloomberg) — New York Governor Kathy Hochul said her ambitious housing plan, which sparked a severe backlash in New York City’s suburbs, is no longer part of the protracted negotiations over the state’s $227 billion budget.
The proposal, which aimed to address New York’s dire housing shortage, would have compelled the city and its suburbs to build 3% more homes over three years. The goal was to create 800,000 more units of housing over the next decade.
“You miss 100% of the shots you never take,” Hochul said at the state Capitol in Albany Tuesday. “I took a shot.”
Read more: Rich NYC suburbs fight housing plan they say will destroy them
The governor didn’t rule out the possibility the plan could be resurrected later this year, before lawmakers typically end their legislative session in June. The budget is 25 days late, the longest delay in finalizing a state spending plan in more than a decade.
The housing plan would have required localities to rezone neighborhoods near train stations to allow for more homes and apartments to be built in less space, while jurisdictions that failed to meet the targets or rejected proposed developments risked having their zoning regulations overruled by the state.
That aspect of the plan, which would effectively penalize municipalities to ensure compliance with the housing targets, was regarded by many housing advocates as critically necessary to compel reluctant suburban areas to build housing. But it drew intense outrage from some suburban lawmakers who saw the measure as usurpation of local control over government.
Local officials like Mary Marvin, the mayor of Bronxville, a suburb 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Manhattan in Westchester County, were perplexed that they hadn’t been briefed on the plan before Hochul unveiled it as part of her budget.
“I don’t know a single small town mayor that was talked to” about the housing plan in advance of its announcement, Marvin said in an interview this month. “And I probably talked to 30 of them. Not a word,” she said.
Jeanne Zaino, a professor of political science at Iona College, said this month that Hochul’s attempt to marshal support for her housing proposal after she’d already announced it was a potential political pitfall.
“There should have been more of a concerted effort to do that on the front end,” Zaino said.
With the housing proposal off the table, state lawmakers are making progress toward finalizing the spending plan.
“I do see a path to wrap up the budget, perhaps as early as the end of this week,” Hochul said.
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