The fact that Hochul touched on housing in her speech came as a surprise to some lawmakers, considering the Democrat’s extensive plan to build more than 800,000 housing units statewide crumbled in Albany last year. Hochul largely focused on New York City in her address, saying she wants to legalize basement and cellar apartments and resurrect the tax abatement plan 421-a, which lawmakers let expire in 2021.
Assemblyman Chris Burdick, a Democrat from the 93rd District in Mount Kisco, says housing is one of his main priorities going this session — so he was glad to hear it talked about — but he would have liked more specifics.
"I want to see that there’s a plan not just for New York City, but what are the specific actions that would provide for stimulating housing growth in the rest of the state?" asks Burdick.
Much of the Hudson Valley is under a housing crisis. The cities of Kingston and Newburgh have declared housing emergencies over the past couple years, opting into rent control via the New York Tenant Protection Act. A recent report by Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress found that the average single renter cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in any of the region’s nine counties.
Part of the reason Hochul’s housing plan fell through last year is opposition from suburban and rural representatives, who took issue with Hochul’s idea to mandate growth in municipalities across the state, as well as a measure that would allow the state to circumvent local zoning officials to get the job done.
Burdick is one of those representatives. He’d rather see the state provide incentives and require municipalities to draw up their own plans after assessing their individual housing needs – like the way communities were directed to “reimagine policing” in 2019. Burdick and Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg, a fellow Democrat from the 95th District in Ossining, have been working on a package of bills they say would preserve local control while complementing other aspects of Hochul’s plan.
"Every municipality needs to step and do their part, and it can't just all be on the back on the ones that have more density currently," adds Levenberg. "We really need to look at the state as a whole to provide housing for all of those who want to live, work, play, and thrive here."
Hochul did appear to drop the provision overriding local control in her speech. Burdick says, to make affordable housing models work financially, the land basically needs to be acquired for free — and to that end, Hochul says she wants to invest $500 million to construct 15,000 units of housing on sites already owned by the state, like former prisons.
Assemblyman Anil Beephan of the 105th District in East Fishkill says he’s not a fan of that idea. The Republican’s district is home to the former Downstate Correctional Facility in Fishkill, which was decommissioned in 2022 and promptly identified as a potential site for affordable housing. Beephan says he’s spoken with members of the Fishkill town board, however, and they’re not for it.
"They do not believe they have the infrastructure," Beephan explains. "They don’t believe they have the ability to expand their community by the hundreds, if not thousands, of new units and residents [the state is] trying to put there."
"The areas that we represent, they’re not cities with sewer systems. They’re not cities that have public water supplies," adds Burdick. "And those are both significant hurdles in terms of providing affordable housing.
Basically, a lot of the Hudson Valley’s smaller communities want to remain the way they are now: small. And representatives want municipalities to be able to find their own ways to develop housing that won’t drastically change their infrastructure or the density of their communities.
Many of the region’s lawmakers agree that the housing crisis is more than just an issue of supply and demand — simply building housing isn’t going to solve it. Assemblyman Jonathan Jacobson of the 104th District in Newburgh says the state should be doing more to make sure renters have stability right now. He’s a proponent of “Good Cause Eviction” legislation, which would protect tenants from price gouging and from being evicted without a legitimate reason. “Good Cause” is another idea that tanked Hochul’s housing plan last year — but Jacobson says he doesn’t see things moving forward without it.
"I think there has to be a grand bargain concerning Good Cause Eviction, as well as the necessary tax breaks to encourage more housing to be built," he notes.
In her speech, Hohcul listed the housing crisis as a main reason New Yorkers are fleeing the state — not taxes, as some state Republicans argue. Republican Assemblyman Chris Tague of the 102nd District says he doesn’t think that statement is entirely true — and Capital Region lawmakers like State Senator Jim Tedisco and Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara have introduced a bill that would create a bipartisan commission to study outmigration — but he agrees that housing likely plays a part.
Take, for example, the village of Catskill, where Tague says locals have had trouble getting graduates of nearby Columbia-Greene Community College to stay and raise families.
"I mean, you’re talking the average prices now, since COVID, in rural upstate New York: you’re looking at a decent house, you’re paying $250,000," says Tague. "How does somebody fresh out of college, making $40,000-50,000 a year, afford a $250,000 house?"
Legislators expect to hear more details on Hochul’s housing plan in her budget proposal on January 16.
