Gov. Kathy Hochul on March 23 held a roundtable discussion in Albany to press her agenda known as “Let Them Build” that would speed up housing and infrastructure development by cutting red tape such as long environmental reviews under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
Joining Hochul in Albany were: New Rochelle Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert; Kingston Mayor Steve Noble; Executive Director of the New York State Association of Counties Stephen Acquario; Chris Brown of the Columbia Economic Development Corporation; Nicole Green, president and CEO of the North Country Rural Development Coalition; Jahkeen Hoke of Hoke Development; Albany County Executive Dan McCoy; and Carlina Rivera, president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing.
“For too long, red tape has stood in the way of communities building the housing and infrastructure that New Yorkers desperately need,” Hochul said. “New York has always been a state that builds and with these reforms we can recapture that ambition, making it easier and more affordable to build while preserving essential environmental protections.”
Hochul pointed out that housing and critical infrastructure projects can take as much as 56% longer in New York state to get from concept to groundbreaking compared with peer states. Red tape can increase the cost of building a unit of housing in New York City by as much as $82,000.
“We’re not saying anything goes,” Hochul said. “What we’re simply saying is that when a community, the elected leaders, are ready to go forward with a project, after all the permits have been secured and the reviews on the front end, and they’ve determined that there should be, there’s no significant environmental risk, that they should not now get trapped in bureaucracy, which can lead to upwards of two years of additional review mandated by the state.”
Hochul has proposed to amend SEQRA to exempt certain types of housing that have no significant adverse impacts on the environment from SEQRA review. Housing exempted from SEQRA still will be required to comply with regulatory and permit requirements governing water use, air quality, and protection of natural resources. Hochul’s proposal does not supersede local zoning and other state and local permitting requirements, and exempted housing also must be located outside of flood risk areas in order to qualify.
“When a community says yes to projects, whether it’s new housing, whether it’s clean energy, child care facilities, infrastructure, and government is in the way, that dynamic has been failing us for a long time. So it’s now time to get government out of the way and let them build,” Hochul said.
