At roundtable with north country leaders, Hochul touts 'carrots, no sticks' housing development plan

Feb. 7—ALBANY — Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul is holding the proverbial carrot out to local communities to become "pro-housing" jurisdictions this year, and on Wednesday she shook the bait a little further with a roundtable meeting of local leaders in the state Capitol.

Hochul called together a group of town supervisors, city managers and mayors whose communities have already submitted the required documentation, and announced the first 20 to be certified as official "pro-housing communities." That means they've committed to building more housing, and expressed that commitment with a resolution passed by the town, village or city council or board, and demonstrated either a solid plan to grow housing stock in their municipality or actual growth over the last few years.

In return, those certified pro-housing communities will be put first in line for discretionary grants from the governor's office, things like the competitive Downtown Revitalization Initiative that gives cities or villages $10 million for projects to rebuild their urban cores, or the NY Forward grant that provides $4.5 million for similar uses to smaller municipalities.

Hochul has described it as a "carrot, no stick" option, enticing communities into building more housing with access to state funding. Last year, Hochul put forward a firm housing development plan that relied more on "sticks," threatening to take away project approval powers from local municipalities that failed to meet housing growth goals or showed a penchant for refusing development plans.

That was vastly unpopular with advocates for local control and legislative Democrats, who shot the plan down in last year's state budget process.

Hochul originally pitched becoming a pro-housing community as a requirement to access $650 million annually in discretionary grant funding at the start of this year's budget process.

Under the current setup for the program, pro-housing communities are put at the top of the list for the discretionary grants.

During Wednesday's meeting, Hochul produced an actual bundle of carrots, leafy stems still attached, to make her point.

"We don't want any sticks, we want..." she paused as she pulled the root vegetables out from beside her at the table. "Carrots. I'm told this is what you really need to build houses, and I have 650 million carrots that are on the table."

From the north country, Canton Mayor Michael E. Dalton, North Elba Town Councilor Emily K. Politi and Plattsburgh Town Supervisor Michael S. Cashman were in attendance. Canton, both the town and the village, were certified as pro-housing communities, as were Plattsburgh and North Elba.

The village of Canton was notified late last month that it would receive a $4.5 million NY Forward grant, in part thanks to its application to become a pro-housing community.

The village of Alexandria Bay received the other $4.5 million NY Forward grant for the north country, and the village of Lowville received the $10 million DRI award for the region this year. Both were also formally certified as pro-housing communities on Wednesday, but were not represented at the event in Albany.

Mayor Dalton said he was happy to be present for the event, although he was not given a chance to speak as the other local leaders were. In an interview after the meeting, Dalton said Canton officials weren't initially aware that this year's grant money would rely on their pro-housing application when they applied for the NY Forward grant.

"The village of Canton, the town of Canton, did the required paperwork and passed the required resolutions to become pro-housing communities, and they recognized the studies we'd done, the importance of good-quality housing, affordable and market-rate housing to support our community and its development," he said.

Dalton said there is a firm need for more housing in Canton, as in most of New York state.

Supply has not met demand, construction has slowed or stalled and existing housing doesn't offer the kind of quality that many people are looking for in a home.

"The businesses that we have, they require quality housing," he said. "The universities are key to our community, and they have a demand for good quality housing, and that's what we're trying to accomplish here." Canton and neighboring Potsdam are home to four universities: SUNY Canton and St. Lawrence University in Canton, and SUNY Potsdam and Clarkson University in Potsdam.

In Plattsburgh, Supervisor Cashman said he has firsthand experience trying to find housing in his community, as a transplant from Massachusetts who moved to Plattsburgh with his family for work. He said the town is working to create the most encouraging platform for housing development it can, with a smart growth plan that lays out avenues for more development, a comprehensive land use plan, and updates to town subdivision plans all the way back to 1978.

"We want to continue to lead by example, and this program does that, it allows us as an economic driver for the north country, for our corner of it, to continue to punch above our weight," Cashman said.

North Elba Councilor Politi said she agrees with Hochul's approach to answering the housing question in New York, increasing supply and providing incentives to build housing.

"I'm a supply gal when it comes to housing," she said. "And sometimes that's a tough position to be in. So when we have state support behind us on the issue of supply, it really helps at the local level."

She said building up housing stocks in the north country and upstate New York requires infrastructure investments.

"If we're going to increase supplies, we have to see upgrades to our aging infrastructure," she said.

She told the governor that she hopes to see attention on that issue, and the ability to use more state funds to build up infrastructure like water, broadband and electricity for housing development.

Hochul said she was happy to hear the thoughts of representatives and officials from regions all over upstate New York, from the north country to the Hudson Valley, and said she will remain committed to encouraging the construction of more housing.

"We have a higher vision, a great vision, for the state of New York and all of its localities within it," she said. "I want you to know we are looking for families and retirees and for young people, so they can plan to play and raise their families here and make this their home, that there'll be no barriers, that the cost of housing, a lack of availability of housing will not be a factor in their decisions."