The "Across the Aisle" panel at Marist College was part of a regular meeting for the nonprofit research group Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress. State Senator Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymembers Dana Levenberg and Matt Slater discussed some of the bills they have sponsored and where they’d be willing to work together.
Hinchey, a Democrat from the 41st District, says there’s a lot of things making the state — and especially the Hudson Valley — more expensive to live in, including utility costs, childcare, school funding, and general inflation. But housing is the biggest factor.
“People are spending most of their money on housing costs, whether that’s rent or property taxes and mortgage," says Hinchey. "So we have to have a holsitic look, really about how we build more housing in our community in a thoughtful and strategic smart way. But we desprerately need more housing to help bring some of those costs down.”
A Pattern report this year found the Hudson Valley lost more than 12,000 residents in 2021, with many moving over the border to New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Getting lawmakers to agree on how to address the housing crisis hasn’t been easy. Governor Kathy Hochul abandoned a plan last year to mandate the construction of 800,000 homes statewide, after suburban and rural lawmakers decried the proposal as stepping on “home rule,” or local municiaplities’ authority over their communities.
Hochul has switched gears to focus more on tax incentives for developers, but a Pattern report this year pointed out how neighboring “home rule” states, like New Jersey, have still mandated a certain level of housing construction.
Levenberg, a Democrat from the 95th District, says it’s going to take a combination of sticks and carrots to find the balance in New York.
"The common ground is the need for regulations, but with supporting money so that we can put those plans into place," she adds. "And I’ve introduced legislation that would require municipalities to put together a Housing Action Plan for everyone — which includes looking at your workforce, who lives and works in your communities, and how is it that we need to plan and put in place, ‘Where are the places that we can build?’”
Slater, a Republican from the 94th District and former town supervisor of Yorktown, says a lot of smaller communities don’t have the money needed to build infrastructure for increased housing.
Hinchey says she has a few ideas. First, she’s hoping Governor Hochul will sign a bill creating a statewide registry to track and tax short-term rentals. But she’s also sponsoring a bill in the Senate that would reallocate stagnant funding in clean water grant programs to allow upstate communities to update their water lines. Hinchey says the “Safe Water Infrastructure Action Program,” or SWAP, would start out as a pilot program worth about $100 million, but she ultimately envisions it as an annual funding stream for communities to maintain their water infrastructure, the same way they receive funding to upkeep local highways.
“We have thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of miles of water infrastructure. Many of it is still over 200 years old. Some of it is built with wood," Hinchey explains. "So we have a lot of work to do — especially when we, just a few years ago, we enshrined the right to clean air and water in our state constitution.”
The bill has bipartisan support in the Senate, but Hinchey says it still needs sponsors in the House. Slater says he’s interested in learning more.
"One project in my town was a $14 million sewer project — today it’s a $24 million sewer project," he says. "So we really need to get Albany to be investing more in our aging infrastructure here in the Hudson Valley.”
Looking at the next session, Slater says he is focused heavily on childcare. A Pattern report this year found the number of childcare centers for infants is dwindling in the Hudson Valley, due to the expansion of universal pre-K and intense state regulations. The report also found many families still don’t know they qualify for public assistance to help pay for childcare.
Slater says he and his colleagues have put forward a range of ideas.
“We’ve proposed putting out a postcard when you’re leaving the hospital, to let young families know, ‘Hey, you might qualify for this,’" he explains. "Also, an ombudsman program is really important. This way childcare centers can have an advocate in the [Office of Children and Family Services] process. And also a substitute pool for childcare providers…if we can create a pool of childcare providers, just like we have in public schools and private schools, substitute teachers, that would help sustain childcare access.”
