Kathy Clown's Housing Compact is kaput but Mayor Swagger's City Of Yes housing plan stumbles on

 

THE CITY

With Gov. Kathy Hochul abandoning her proposal to force New York’s suburbs to build more housing, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and its allies are redoubling their efforts to ensure the city gains the power to spur more housing construction by converting office buildings, extending tax credits for developers and allowing greater density.

To help push those through, the governor for the first time has indicated she is willing to accept a statewide rent voucher program, a key objective of tenant advocates. The program would provide money to the city’s public housing authority to cover unpaid rent, say sources who have been briefed by those in the negotiations. As THE CITY has previously reported, more than 70,000 NYCHA tenants owe a total of $466 million in back rent.

The sudden rush of developments from Albany on Tuesday may serve as a break in the impasse that has held up the state budget, now 19 days late — but they also mean a significant defeat for Hochul.

Tuesday’s concession by the governor comes after she made housing the centerpiece of her policy goals once she won the governor’s race in November. Hochul called on the state to build 800,000 new housing units over the next decade, a number that includes the 500,000 new units that Adams promised to create over the next 10 years.

The governor’s original Housing Compact proposal established goals for new housing in every community and set up a statewide board that could greenlight projects that had been rejected in towns and villages that failed to meet their housing goals. Lawmakers in the state’s suburban districts — especially in Long Island and Westchester — had staunchly opposed the plan, saying it ripped control away from locals.

As word circulated in the capital on Tuesday that Hochul was giving up on her previous housing requirements, the governor essentially conceded defeat.

“After weeks of negotiation, the legislature continues to oppose core elements of the Housing Compact, including the requirement that communities across the state meet growth targets,” Hochul said in a statement. “I will continue to discuss other elements of the plan and policy changes that will increase supply and make housing more affordable.”

Instead of specific requirements for new housing creation, the budget is now likely to include some version of a proposal the legislature has made to create a $500 million fund for infrastructure upgrades, such as improving roads and sewers, to communities that meet goals for new housing.

Groups that have spent the last year arguing that the state’s housing shortage is a result of too little housing development, and that local community resistance preserves segregation in the suburbs, wasted little time in blasting state lawmakers.

“We are extremely disappointed that the legislature failed to address segregation and the housing shortage by rejecting the visionary Housing Compact and instead capitulated to powerful NIMBYs who prefer the status quo,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference. “By doing so, New York’s elected officials have once again let their constituents down and signaled that the ongoing housing emergency is acceptable.”

The housing goals would have applied to every community district in the city as well.

Still alive are proposals advanced by the Adams administration. They include legislation to ease the conversion of obsolete office buildings into residential housing — possibly including a tax break to encourage some of the units to be designated as below-market-rate housing; changes to state law to allow thousands of basement apartments to be legalized, and extending a deadline for completion of residential buildings that poured their foundations before the valuable 421-a tax break expired last spring. 

In a statement on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Adams promised to keep pushing the administration’s plan.

“Our administration has been on the ground daily in Albany in recent months advancing critical tools like flexible regulations for office conversations, lifting the floor area ratio cap, creating a pathway to make basement and cellar apartments safe and legal, and creating tax incentives to develop new housing while maintaining housing quality,” said Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor.

 

What's in the Biggest Ugliest Big Ugly in state history

 

NY Daily News 

While New York’s $220 billion budget was more than a few days late, no one can say it was a dollar short.

Bolstered by federal COVID funds and higher-than-anticipated tax revenues, the Democratic-led Legislature finally approved a sweeping, week-late spending plan Saturday. The budget language includes funds for boosting child care and wages for health care workers, temporarily suspending part of the state’s gas tax, and overhauling bail laws.

A marathon voting session concluded early Saturday in the State Capitol following two weeks of secretive, closed-door conversations centered around Gov. Hochul’s 11th-hour public safety proposals and a half-billion-dollar handout to the Buffalo Bills for a new stadium.

The final budget, which Hochul signed Saturday afternoon, included some of the governor’s desired changes to bail and gun laws and other policy items like allowing restaurants to resume the popular pandemic practice of selling to-go cocktails.

It also accelerates tax cuts for middle-class families and includes a property tax break for homeowners and a temporary, partial suspension of the state’s gasoline tax.

The state will cut taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel by 16 cents a gallon from June 1 through the end of the year in response to soaring prices at the pump.

Homeowners can expect a little relief as the state will spend about $2.2 billion in one-time property tax rebates for low- and middle-income property owners.

New York is also set to decrease tax rates for middle families by $162 million by April 2023, instead of waiting until 2025 to fully phase in the long-planned tax cuts.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to not just bring relief to families and put more money in people’s pockets today, but also to make historic investments in New Yorkers for years ahead,” Hochul said in a statement. “With this budget, we are seizing that opportunity and ushering in a new era of a stronger, safer, more prosperous New York State.”

The budget also includes billions in pandemic recovery funds that will add $800 million to the state’s depleted COVID rental assistance program, $250 million in utility arrear assistance and $125 million in homeowner and landlord assistance.

Another $1.2 billion will help fund bonuses for frontline healthcare workers and $3.9 billion in funding to aid hospitals struggling in the wake of the pandemic. Another $7.7 billion will be spent over four years to increase the home care worker minimum wage by $3.

The final tally came in $4 billion over Hochul’s initial budget proposal and includes $7 billion to be spent over the next four years to expand childcare access across the state, a priority for lawmakers in both chambers.

 The Assembly Majority has always believed in putting families first because we know that the success of our state depends on the wellbeing of our families,” said Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx). “The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the childcare crisis and forced too many New Yorkers out of the workforce entirely.”

Hochul didn’t walk away from the negotiations empty-handed as lawmakers gave the green light to $600 million in state money for a new stadium for the Bills and legislative leaders acquiesced and allowed some changes to the state’s bail laws.

 

Scandal scarred Governor Cuomo finalizes state budget with more taxes for the wealthy, rent and mortgage relief,financial aid for undocumented immigrant workers and also ends immunity for nursing homes

 

THE CITY

State lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo reached a deal on the state’s $212 billion budget Tuesday, agreeing to tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers and to create a fund for undocumented workers shut out of financial assistance during the pandemic.

Buoyed by a $12.6 billion infusion from the stimulus package Congress passed in March, the budget is New York’s largest financial plan to date. New York’s second pandemic budget arrived nearly a week past the April 1 start of the state’s fiscal year, after an embattled Cuomo and Democratic lawmakers disagreed on a multitude of issues.

Among the most contentious: billions in aid for workers excluded from unemployment benefits and federal pandemic stimulus payments, billions more for financially distressed renters and homeowners, and another $1 billion-plus to jumpstart Cuomo’s Penn Station overhaul.

Bills detailing the intricacies of the proposals were introduced Tuesday evening.

“Thanks to the state’s strong fiscal management and relentless pursuit to secure the federal support that the pandemic demanded, we not only balanced our budget, we are also making historic investments to reimagine, rebuild and renew New York in the aftermath of the worst health and economic crisis in a century,” Cuomo said in a joint statement with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

The massive spending plan will also raise taxes on the state’s million-dollar-plus earners — spurring concerns from fiscal watchdogs who say it risks driving high-earning taxpayers to leave New York. And the deal will legalize online sports betting, adding a projected $99 million in revenue this fiscal year and up to $500 million annually in years to come, lawmakers estimate.

Spending highlights outlined by Cuomo, Stewart-Cousins and Heastie include:

• $2.1 billion for the so-called Excluded Workers Fund
• $2.4 billion in assistance to renters
• $600 million in aid to homeowners
• $1.3 billion for the Empire Station project at Penn Station
• $29.5 billion in schools spending — a $3 billion increase

  Governor Cuomo repealed a controversial law that shielded nursing homes and other essential businesses from coronavirus related lawsuits Tuesday night. The measure rolled back the “Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act,” which granted health care facilities and workers liability immunity from negligence suits, and comes as Cuomo’s administration is under federal investigation for covering up some 9,000 COVID-19 related nursing home deaths last year. The scandal — exclusively revealed by The Post — weakened Cuomo politically and led to calls for him to resign as sexual harassment accusations against him swirled in the wake of the report. “As we near the passage of this year’s momentous budget, I am relieved to see corporate immunity, which was slipped into last year’s budget, fully repealed,” Bronx State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, one of the bill’s sponsor said in a statement Tuesday night. “This blanket immunity prevented thousands of families who lost loved ones to COVID-19 from seeking legal recourse, and potentially incentivized nursing home executives to cut corners — endangering staff and residents.”