New Issue Brief: Evaluating Hochul’s Land-Use Revolution

NEW YORK, NY – In light of an ongoing housing-supply crisis concentrated in New York City and its suburbs, Governor Kathy Hochul is intent on building new homes in the Empire State. Her February 1^st budget proposes legislation which, if enacted, would constitute a veritable land use-planning revolution for a state government that has historically played a small role in such matters.

In a new Manhattan Institute issue brief, senior fellow Eric Kober evaluates the proposals, which aim to add 800,000 new homes statewide over 10 years. He commends Hochul’s instinct for bold action, pointing out that without state legislation, local governments often default to parochial concerns that oppose change, resulting in increased local housing prices but exacerbating supply shortages. Additionally, he finds that some of the governor’s proposals are well-conceived and would help solve the state’s decades-long impasse between the housing needs generated by New York City’s powerhouse economy and the anti-growth agenda of some elected officials downstate. At the same time, he suggests other proposals are unsound, overriding local governments’ priorities to a disproportionate degree.

Specifically, Kober examines the thirteen housing-related provisions in Gov. Hochul’s budget, offering recommendations for improvement. He argues that the legislature should:

• Make the proposal to “Promote New Housing Statewide through Local Growth Targets and Fast Track Approvals” more workable. This can be achieved by: (1) using a simple measure of new building permits issued to track progress toward the quantitative housing goals; (2) allowing more flexibility in the options that communities can use to demonstrate that they are in “safe harbor,” and not subject to sanctions for refusing development; and (3) ensuring that any land-use actions taken to meet growth targets are exempt from environmental review.
• Decline to enact the bill to “Encourage Transit-Oriented Housing Development.” This bill would define sizable areas close to subway or commuter rail stations as “transit-oriented development zones,” and require them to have a minimum average density. The highest required minimum densities would be within New York City, and in Nassau and Westchester Counties. This bill demands dramatic change in many communities, well beyond the quantitative goals set in the growth targets legislation, while leaving little role for local participation in determining how communities should evolve. Refining the growth targets legislation would better meet statewide housing goals while balancing the need for community input.

Other recommendations relate to collecting local zoning and housing production data, creating greater opportunities to convert office spaces to residential housing, authorizing tax-incentive benefits for converting commercial property to affordable housing, enabling the city to create a pathway to legalizing preexisting basement dwelling units, lifting the statutory cap on residential density, and extending the project completion deadline for vested 421-a projects by four years.

Click here to read the full report.