SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Governor Hochul And Housing

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Gov. Hochul’s ambitious housing plan meets suburban blockade” was the headline last week in the Gothamist. “Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to build 800,000 new homes over the next 10 years statewide is running into a familiar obstacle: suburbanites,” began the article.

It continued: “Already, local officials in Westchester County, the Hudson Valley and on Long Island are organizing against the central plank of the Democrat’s newly unveiled plan that would set housing production targets for every city, town or village in the state. If a municipality misses the mark, the state could step in and approve new housing development, Hochul said.”

“Suburban leaders,” it went on, “have proved themselves formidable foes; last year they led an organized, sustained public pressure campaign to force Hochul to retreat on a prior proposal that would have allowed single-family homeowners to legally rent out apartments in their attic, basement or garage, regardless of local zoning. Now, the same political forces say Hochul is again overstepping, even though hardly anyone is willing to criticize the plan’s intent of providing housing in areas of the state that desperately need it.”

State Senator Anthony Palumbo from New Suffolk was quoted as saying: “Look, do we need additional housing? Of course we do, but local control is critical.”

Earlier, after Hochul announced her “New York Housing Compact” in her “State of the State” address last month, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor issued a statement saying that “as the chair of the State Assembly Committee on Local Governments, it is important to offer constructive suggestions now to implement the governor’s vision.” He said “the governor’s proposal alludes to the creation of a state board to overrule local zoning decisions and possible rollbacks to the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Both of these actions are ill-considered. The best way to create affordable housing is with carrots and not sticks and with incentives and not mandates.”

Also, the Gossamist said “speaking to reporters in Rochester…Hochul said she anticipated the opposition from suburban leaders protective of home rule” but declared “I also know that we all have to play our part in solving a crisis, because people want to live in those communities. They want to live in Westchester and Nassau and Suffolk in particular. There’s a lot of jobs down there, and a lot of employers are saying, ‘I can’t get the workers I need.’ We have to have affordable housing to bring them out.”

I first wrote about housing in Suffolk in 1962. It was my first job as a reporter, at the Babylon Town Leader, and garden apartments were coming to the town and there was resistance and fear of Babylon becoming “another Queens.” I was assigned to visit several of the garden apartments and was told by residents that living in a garden apartment was what they could afford and, yes, different than the post-World War II Long Island standard: a house on a plot of land. A general view from neighbors was that the garden apartments fit in their communities.

These days, the affordability issue is far more intense. In 1964, we bought our first house, in Sayville, for $19,000. Even adjusting for inflation, that’s a small fraction of the cost of a house in Suffolk these days. Newsday last week reported the median price of a house in Suffolk in 2022 was $530,000. How can average people and the young afford the skyrocketed price of a house in Suffolk today? 

Our affordable housing situation is not unique. Consider what’s happening on Nantucket, the island east of Suffolk, part of Massachusetts, where an affordable housing battle has been going on. An article in the Daily Mail last month began: “Plans to build an affordable housing complex in Nantucket remain in limbo after locals objected to the scheme, insisting the affluent island does not have the infrastructure or resources for the development.“ What’s been named Surfside Crossing would be condos and homes on 13.5 acres with, it said, “70 percent designated for people who live on the island year-round.”

“The governor proposes a 3 percent new homes target for Long Island over the next three years,” said Thiele. He authored the Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Fund Act approved by voters in the last election that is to be financed with a .5 percent real estate transfer tax to help first-time homebuyers and has advanced a State Accessory Dwelling Unit Incentive Act. “Our region has seen the greatest growth in population in New York State” and “has seen successive development booms, all while still protecting critical natural resources….Local communities do not need to be bludgeoned into action with mandates and state overrides of local decision making. A much more collaborative approach is necessary.”

Long Island Association president and CEO Matt Cohen said last month: “Affordability is the existential crisis facing Long Island and it’s causing young professionals and others to leave because they cannot afford to live here. We must develop creative solutions now.” 

Indeed.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.