Hochul housing plan focuses on NYC, but slammed for letting suburbs off the hook

Gov. Hochul’s highly anticipated housing agenda was unveiled in her State of the State address Tuesday — and promptly slammed as a watered-down version of last year’s unsuccessful compact that fails to comprehensively address the ongoing housing crisis.

A key component of the 2023 plan would have forced suburbs to create more housing, and was met with fierce resistance from elected officials from Long Island and elsewhere.

This year, Hochul is now focusing her housing efforts squarely in New York City.

“We still need an effective statewide approach to encourage new construction,” she said in her State of the State speech. “But in the meantime, there are aggressive actions we can and must take now.”

While she introduced several new initiatives — such as a $500 million fund to help turn state-owned sites like former prisons into as many as 15,000 new housing units — many components are holdovers from her old strategy.

That includes a proposed extension and replacement of the controversial 421-a tax break, which incentivized construction of market-rate and affordable housing in New York City and expired in 2022. Developers have been calling for a replacement ever since, saying it’s crucial to build new housing. Critics of the program say it’s an overly generous handout to landlords that does little to alleviate the crisis.

Hochul also reupped her support for a possible office conversion tax break, lifting a limitation on residential density and legalizing basement apartments.

Advocates and experts reacted with disappointment to the plan, describing it as tinkering at the edges without tackling the overall housing crisis.

“It’s really good that the governor is on the same page as the mayor,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference. “On the other hand, New York State is a very big state, and these affordability issues are plaguing workers in every county.”

Several tenant protections were also added, including setting up an enforcement unit to crack down on voucher discrimination and legislation that would make it illegal for insurance companies to increase premiums for those using vouchers.

But perhaps most notable was what the agenda omitted. That includes forcing localities to build more housing, which helped sink last year’s housing compact. Now Hochul is favoring carrot over stick, proposing a pro-housing requirement for local governments hoping to unlock certain discretionary funding.

Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator with Housing Justice for All, said the move “completely” lets the suburbs off the hook, and that she was “solidly underwhelmed” by the larger plan.

No mention was made of “good cause eviction” policies — a form of tenant protection championed by progressive leaders but rejected by Hochul and the real estate industry — or any statewide anti-eviction measures.

“We’re already starting from less,” Weaver said. “It just is kind of like a ‘meh.’”