A Long Island Lens on Hochul's Housing Plan
Backhoes are finally clearing the earth for the development of Matinecock Court, an affordable-housing complex in on Long Island that was first proposed 45 years ago. I recently went to the site in the town of Huntington and filed this dispatch for The Wall Street Journal.
To housing advocates, a multifamily project first floated when Jimmy Carter was president is the ultimate example of unreasonably restrictive suburban zoning and the reason for a push by Gov. Kathy Hochul to change the rules. To Long Island officials, who have long been concerned about traffic and school crowding, Matinecock Court was a challenge to the inviolate need for local control over land-use decisions.
New York lawmakers are currently debating the Democratic governor’s proposal to let developers of multifamily projects similar to Matinecock Court bypass municipalities to get approval from the state in certain circumstances. It would also require denser development around train stations.
Hochul’s aides said that suburban counties have lagged behind New York City in constructing new units. They said she modeled her proposal on existing laws in Massachusetts and California, which have sparked more housing but haven’t solved the larger problems of scarce supply and high prices.
As part of her proposed state budget, she included a mandate for downstate municipalities to increase their housing stock by 3% over three years. If they aren’t found to be compliant, a new state board would approve multifamily developments that don’t pose a risk to health and safety.
Proponents and opponents of the governor’s plan held dueling rallies (here’s a video clip that I recorded) Monday at the state Capitol. Dozens of officials representing suburban areas of New York pushed back on Hochul’s plan, saying the state would erode local control and upset the character of towns.
“We’re planning with a gun to our head. It’s like, do it or else,” Huntington Supervisor Ed Smyth, a Republican, told me during my trip to Suffolk County. “We do want to maintain a suburban way of life out here. People moved to Huntington for that.”
Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of the nonprofit group Housing Help Inc. that is behind Matinecock Court, called the property’s decadeslong holdup the poster child of restrictive zoning. At the Capitol, she joined chants of “local control is segregation” and argued that the predominance of single-family homes — and relative lack of apartments or smaller units — mean it’s difficult for lower-income people to find space.
As Binyamin Appelbaum wrote in The New York Times, free-standing single-family homes account for more than 81% of the housing stock in Suffolk County. That figure is about 75% in neighboring Nassau County.
New York University’s Furman Center emphasized Long Island’s lagging construction by comparing building permits per capita to other suburban counties. Vicki Been, the center’s faculty director, said the mandates in Hochul’s plan are important because simple incentives won’t work.
But that seems to be how state lawmakers are proceeding. Budget counterproposals released by both the state Senate and Assembly include $500 million for infrastructure upgrades but junked the required density around train stops.
Hochul says the mandates are a key component of her plan, but it’s unclear how things will shake out in final budget talks. The current fiscal year ends Friday. At the Capitol last week, no one I spoke with thought a new budget — including some kind of housing plan — would be in place by the deadline.
THE QUESTION: Which Long Island towns have more residents than the City of Buffalo?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Brotherhood Winery in Orange County, established in 1839, claims to be the first in not just New York, but the nation. I’m told the space is cool but the wine is … well the space is cool.