B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: After Completed Renovation of Affordable Senior Apartments in Montgomery County, Governor Hochul Announces $406 Million in Financing to Build Additional Affordable Housing

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted nearly 1,000 units of affordable housing being created through State funding, including the completion of 200 affordable senior housing units in Montgomery County and $406 million in financing awarded through bonds and subsidies to create nearly 800 affordable, sustainable homes in five transit-oriented developments. The Governor made the announcement at a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating completed renovations at New Amsterdam Apartments, a 116-unit public senior housing development in the city of Amsterdam.

B-ROLL of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. It's great to be back here in Amsterdam. I'm not a stranger to this community. It's just down the road from where I hang my hat once in a while. And I want to just tell everyone how excited I am to be here because I've seen this community. Eight years ago, as Lieutenant Governor, nine years ago now, I saw the great potential here. I saw a community that believed in itself, but many from the outside didn't see the same possibilities that we all saw.

And the DRI, the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, which I was so proud to announce here, really was a catalyst for change. And so, it is great to be back here to see the need for housing, which means people want to be in your community. You don't have to build housing if no one wants to be there. So that is a good signal of people's confidence.

And I want to thank our many legislators and individuals who've helped us, starting with Mayor Cinquanti. I want to thank you for your leadership of this community. It's a community that matters. It punches above its weight in a sense because there's so many wonderful assets here. And I know having been in local government where people know you, they recognize you in the grocery store, they see you everywhere, and you are very accessible. And I know the challenges, but also the great choice of being able to represent people at the local level. So, let's give round applause to our mayor here.

I've worked a long time with our county executive as well. We've done many projects together and traveled this wonderful county just talking about its great assets and attributes. And sometimes you live in a community a long time, you sometimes forget what you have. You take for granted. So, I'm always able to go in with a fresh set of eyes. And so, Matt Ossenfort, our County Executive, let's give him a round of applause as well.

Angelo Santabarbara, our Assemblymember is here. Let's give him a round of applause. Bruce Levine - it takes developers. It takes private sector partnerships, and I want to thank him for his work that he does at 3D Development and for the work with this project. Bruce Levine.

To Damaris Carbone, I want to thank you and everyone who's part of the Amsterdam Municipal Housing Authority, your board, your members. This sometimes can feel like thankless work, but it is so critically important that we have authorities like yours throughout the state that are seeing the possibility, seeing a piece of land, seeing an old building that just needs a lot of attention. You know, the possibility of reconverting, sometimes old schools and old buildings into wonderful housing. And so, it takes a housing authority that's enlightened, and I want to thank all of you and your members for what you're doing. Let's give them a round of applause as well.

And the person I rely on most as we chart the – navigate the waters of trying to build more housing in the state, and that is RuthAnne Visnauskas. She and her team have been out on the forefront of an important journey, one that I believe will be legacy making at the end of our times in these positions, we want to know that we really made a difference in this state, but also for the people who live here.

And opening up more housing, all levels of housing – low income, affordable, mixed use market rate, it doesn't matter. We have such demand for housing in this state, and she is the one who has been at the forefront in making sure that we leave no stone unturned in our quest to make sure we build more housing. Let's give her a big round of applause.

I mentioned before the DRI, and I'm going to have a chance to stroll around and look at some of the improvements. But, you know, you have such a spectacular waterfront. Never take it for granted. This is the envy of many communities, when you can see that – people love being near the water. Its healing, it's the sense of calm. It connects you to other places when you see waterways, the canal, and just the sense of belief in this community is so important. The Amsterdam Castle, you can't get a room. It is always booked there. And the historic downtown's been revitalized. I thought it had – I thought it was a little rougher on the edges a decade ago, but now it's just shining. It looks fabulous. And I really want you to know that as someone who sees every community in the state, many times, I go to all 62 counties every year, this is a really special place and it's no surprise people want to live here. They want to settle down here. They want to come from elsewhere, but also the individuals who called this home, were born here, raised here. When they have their children and their families, they want to be able to stay here as well.

And now you have a situation where houses go on the market, they're gone that afternoon. So, they don't even have a choice. People have to leave because no fault of their own. They're not the ones responsible for building more housing or that first apartment for a young person out of school or a place a senior can live, so they can downsize from the home that they raise their families in and contribute to this great community and now they wanted to stay here. And if we don't provide the availability of all these options - and government has a role to play with the private sector and the community - if we don't do our job there, then that's going to be a reason people leave. And we cannot give anyone a reason to say, “Well, they're building more housing in these other states and it's more affordable.” Because when you build more housing - think about this, real simple - build more housing, prices go down. When there's a shortage - which is what we're experiencing in our cities and our counties and our smallest towns - when you have that shortage, then the prices are driven up. And that is a factor in why people can't afford to live in the community that they were raised in.

So, we are in a midst of an affordability crisis. I've been talking about this. We have some of the steepest housing prices in America. And like I said, if you can't have your kids and grandkids grow up close to grandma, grandpa, it's sad. I have a grandchild who lives in Washington, and I treasure every minute with her, but it’s also our police officers, our firefighters, our teachers, when they first get, you know, start their careers, they're not making a lot of money. But they want to be able to live in the community that they serve, and we have to provide that.

And that's what we're working on. It's been a stubborn issue, building more housing, and I presented some very bold ideas to the legislature. The legislature wasn't quite ready last year to embrace. That's all right. You know, sometimes movements, change is hard. It takes time, but I think what's important is that legislators hear from the people who live in these communities.

They say, “Well, it's really sad my kids can't find a home here,” or “My son, who's a police officer can't live in this community,” or “My parents can't live here and what are you doing about it?” And, “Are you part of the Governor's plan to build more housing in this state?” Again, I'm not saying it has to be all affordable housing, although that serves a very important purpose – just build more.

Take old buildings that have lost their purpose. Why can't we let people live in them? That's a catalyst for downtowns. That means that the little restaurants, and my mom had a little flower shop when I was growing up. I helped her start it. You know, if we didn't have people growing, the community wasn't growing, then her business is going to falter.

It's a whole ecosystem, but the core of it - people need a safe, affordable place to live. And we have a responsibility. And I'm not going to sit by and let time march on without doing something because this is a crisis. And thank you. And here's the plan, in the absence of the legislature acting in a way that I think would be jump starting the work I want done, and they'll have an opportunity again to look at this next year.

I said I'm going to start using the executive powers that I have, executive actions. I said that let's first of all reward the communities, reward the communities and those who are visionary, who want to stimulate growth in housing. So, I've identified discretionary funds in the state budget that I've now put in a $650 million fund that communities that are pro-housing communities will be able to apply for and get priority over those who are not.

It's bold, it's innovative. Our commissioner's working on the criteria right now, but there are things that a local government can do to show their commitment. And I was in local government for 14 years and we built a lot of housing, but we built it where we wanted it, but we made sure that we could meet the demand of our community that wanted to grow and make sure there was room for the next generation.

So first of all, $650 million. We also realize there's a lot of regulatory burdens that stop development. A lot of them, and someone may say, “Why isn't something going in that space?” Well, there's a thousand regulations they have to follow. I wanted us to take a look at all these regulations. Do they all make sense? Do they serve a purpose? If it's for the health, safety, and welfare of our community and the environment, yes, we have to have those in place, full stop.

But if they've just evolved over time and they're just one more headache and one more barrier to building, I want them gone. And that is the task that we're undertaking right now, just to make the environment better and more positive for people who do want to develop and for the communities who want the development.

I'm also calling on our State agencies identifying all the abandoned, vacant, underutilized properties that we have titled to that we own that can be repurposed and utilized for housing.

So, you might start seeing some really creative spaces that you never thought possible, but why not? Would you rather have an abandoned building with broken windows and vandalism? Or do you want to see people living in this? I mean, that's the choice we're facing here. So, we're going to do everything in our power to build new housing, renovate our existing housing stock. And I can't think of a better advertisement for what I want to do than what we are doing here today, standing with these beautifully renovated new Amsterdam apartments just down the road from the Stratton apartments.

So, you're seeing the synergy created here. I don't get to - I don't just see new apartments. I see hope. I see a home. I see a new life for someone, someone who's going to put their roots right here and become a vibrant part of this community. So, these are part of our sustained effort to deliver, and over the last five years, Housing and Community Renewal - under the leadership of RuthAnne Visnauskas - they've invested over $37 million to create or preserve more than 300 affordable housing units right here in Montgomery County. Right here. 300 more families can live right here. And much of that has happened right here in Amsterdam.

June was a very busy month here. Sorry I couldn't make all the groundbreakings and the ribbon cuttings, but Legacy City ACCESS, that broke ground. And we cut the ribbon on the Veddersburg Apartments and opened the Holland Circle Apartments. That's in one month. That's what I'm talking about.

That's what progress is all about. And energy that's creative. People start saying, “Well, this is a very desirable place. Look at all the housing that's going up.” And creating more than 100 - the last units created 100 units in Amsterdam alone. And this is what I'm talking about. So over and over naysayers say it can't be done.

We've heard too, too many complaints. It's, you know, change is hard. It's too hard to build housing in the State of New York. But if you have the political will and are willing to overcome the barriers and the resistance, look what gets done. Look what gets done. It doesn't have to be contentious. It doesn't have to be a battle.

We all want the same thing. And so, we're here today to celebrate the completion of phase two of our $47.4 million investment in our senior population. As a member of that population group, I think it's great. And again, the new Amsterdam Apartments, 116 units. Stratton, 75, and again using $40 million in State financing.

So more important to me than is the dollars invested, is the fact that this means families can stay connected. This is so important. This is so important, and you don't have to be anxious about having to move because when I was growing up in Buffalo, oh, you could find a house because everyone said, “The last one out, turn out the lights.” They left. All my siblings, big Irish Catholic family, I'm the last one out of six kids who could find a job in New York.

Years and years ago, they all left. Housing was available, you couldn't give it away. But you know what we didn't have were jobs. Now we have the jobs, plenty of opportunity. Unemployment is low. There's a job if you want it, but if you don't have a house to live in, it doesn't work out. So, we have to solve that side of the equation. Keep the economy strong, keep creating jobs. I'm going to keep working on economic development so we can bring more jobs to this region. The Mohawk Valley has a tremendous potential, but we have to have places for people to live.

And again, aging New Yorkers need that dignity to age in the community they raised their own children in. Have services around them. And I know the value of these individuals. I mean, someone who's, you know, 65, 75, 85, they're still contributing. They're still doing amazing things. I think about my mother, for her 70th birthday a number of years ago, her 70th birthday, she didn't want a cake. She wanted us to take an old abandoned funeral home in our town and give it life as a place for victims of domestic violence. That's the kind of family I came from. My mom ran that. We scrubbed it up, made it look beautiful, painted all the walls. The basement was kind of scary, I'll just say that.

But it became a place for children could live and families were connected who had seen the worst violence in their own families. So, that's what people do. This is a home they can live in. Those individuals will continue contributing regardless of their age because we gave them a wonderful home.

And that's the difference we're making today. Also, I want to say that we're continuing our efforts. We're going to be, in addition to projects like these, announcing we've already awarded over $400 million in bonds and subsidies to create 800 affordable units throughout the state of New York. And what this does is it lifts the strain off the hardest hit communities to create the kind of housing we want. Energy efficient housing - it costs a little more at the outset, but ultimately, you recoup that in energy savings, but we want to make sure that we're making these investments. So, some of these investments, some of this financing was used for these products right here in Amsterdam.

Again, this isn't the answer. It's not the final solution. These one-offs are great, and we'll continue doing them, but we need a comprehensive, well-thought-out approach that the public supports, because I know they're with us on this. I know they want this. We have to get the political will in our State Capitol and elsewhere to make sure we get this done.

So, I'm going to keep building the momentum, building the momentum. Let's keep on this path and showing people exactly what we're talking about. And it all comes down, many times, to our local leaders standing up and saying, "We want this." Our communities deserve this. And again, I want to thank our mayor for his support of these projects and many more to come - Mayor Cinquanti, the Mayor of Amsterdam.