Governor Kathy Hochul Takes Matters in Her Own Hands To Try To Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis

Governor Kathy Hochul, criticizing the legislature for inaction, is taking on trying to solve the affordable housing crisis

Governor Kathy Hochul this week announced steps aimed at reducing the state’s affordable housing crisis. And she placed the blame squarely on her fellow Democrats in the Senate and Assembly for the lack of action on the crisis during the 2023 legislative session.   

Hochul, in her State of the State message in January, introduced an ambitious plan to build 800,000 new housing units in the next decade. 

But it failed to gain traction among Democrats in the Legislature, whose suburban members objected to a provision that would allow the state to override local zoning laws in some cases.

Hochul withdrew the proposal from the state budget. Later, Senate and Assembly leaders offered a new plan that included tenant protections like the Good Cause Eviction measure, but this time it was the governor who rejected the plan.

Hochul, announcing an executive order this week to revive plans for 8,500 units of affordable housing in Brooklyn, says the Senate and Assembly forced her hand on using the order to address the problem.

“We announced this bold plan. The Legislature was not ready for it and would not commit at the time to the transformative change that New Yorkers so desperately need and deserve.

Hochul’s order restarts affordable housing projects that were halted when a special tax break for developers, known as 421-a, expired in 2022. The governor, who also blamed lawmakers for letting that program run out, says the new arrangement “mirrors” what 421-a offered to developers.

 “I will not wait,” Hochul said. “I'm going to do everything I can within my powers, using every tool I can find, the ones I'm announcing today and the ones we haven't even thought of yet.”