Governor Hochul: "We've created so many more jobs than ever before, but we've not kept pace with building the housing. And communities large and small all have a capacity to just grow a little bit more. Some want to grow big; some want to keep their small character. I understand that and they should. But we have to open up the doors so we can get people to be able to live here."
Hochul: "This is about making Long Island be the best it can be because we've come a long way. We've been through a lot together. We've seen the downward trends. We've seen the beginnings of a comeback, but that comeback will never be complete if we don't provide housing that people can afford. And that to me is the greatest challenge facing us right now."
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced details of key proposals for Long Island from her Fiscal Year 2024 Executive Budget including the New York Housing Compact - the Governor's comprehensive strategy to address New York's housing crisis and build 800,000 new homes in the next decade after visiting small businesses in Patchogue, New York.
B-ROLL of the tour 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:
Thank you. Thank you. And how about a shout out to our great Mayor of Patchogue? Mayor Pontieri. Mayor. Mayor.
Well, I am so delighted to be back here once again. The Mayor will be speaking as soon as I'm done. He can tell you our stories of our first visits out here. I will admit it was after five. In fact, it was called, I think, Alive at Five or Alive After Five. Okay. It was a festival. There were certain things you had to do to participate.
You can elaborate on that later, but it was a lot of fun and so, I enjoy this community tremendously and I want to thank him for his extraordinary leadership of this community. Leadership does matter. It truly matters who the people elect and who they keep in office. And for us to have had a chance to see in action the impact of one person and his vision on this community is extraordinary. So again, you'll be hearing from him. But ladies and gentlemen, I am so impressed with your Mayor, Mayor Paul Pontieri.
And someone who is a great friend of mine, someone I've worked with for many, many years, battling everything from hurricanes, storms, COVID, all the challenges that a county official has to face. But Steve Bellone has been that extraordinary leader who just rose up, who never felt the stress, maybe didn't show the stress, but always that calm, cool, collected person who could walk in a room and say, "We've got this." And so, for the confidence that you've given all of us from your leadership on behalf of the entire state and certainly the people of Suffolk County, our great County Executive, Steve Bellone.
RuthAnne Visnauskas, are you in the crowd? I just - oh, there you are. You should be in the front row because this woman - maybe you're tired of being on the front line. She just came through her hearing yesterday in the legislature and did very well and I want to thank her for, again, being that visionary at a time when the state needs people willing to step up and do the right thing and that is our leader of Housing and Community Renewal, RuthAnne Visnauskas. Our leader.
New York State's Director of Policy, Micah Lasher has joined us as well. Micah, where are you? Micah? Micah, thank you for coming. We also have a couple speakers you're going to be hearing from Derek Peterson. You're going to hear about his great company, Soter Technologies and Tracy Todd Hunter. So, I will not spill the beans on what they're going to say, but you know, this community was recognized by the American Planning Association back in 2019 as one of America's four great neighborhoods.
I'd like to see one through three because I don't know how they surpassed this community because this is an amazing place. We're here in this beautiful YWCA - just walked into the weight room, looks kind of intimidating, so I walked right out. But it's a great resource, you know, people coming together, people having a chance to, you know, have a sense of community and how important is that?
And also, to those who just call this community their home. This is quite amazing. This is an amazing place. We just finished a walking tour, reconfirming what I knew about this community, that it had gone through a life cycle. And I know about that because I'm from Western New York and a lot of our life cycle was in a spiral going down, and that's my childhood.
Remember the early days when all the little shops, men's clothing, women's clothing, shoe shops, bookstore, were all open? But then the decline became so apparent when the businesses left, the big industry, not unlike North of Grumman leaving. It was the Bethlehem Steel Plant that left and left my downtown, virtually a ghost town in the late seventies and eighties and boarded up signs going out of business. It was heartbreaking to see what happened to the community. And I know the same had happened here.
The Mayor said at the beginning of his term, you know, 50 percent of the storefronts were vacant space. And that's a hopeless situation. And I guarantee, just like up where I'm from, right here, people packed up - all my siblings, you know, big Irish Catholic family, I'm the only one left in New York. They all had to leave because they couldn't find a job. And what's important to me is we've turned things around so dramatically that it's not news stories about the jobs leaving, it's about the jobs coming and how positive that is right now.
But we have to do certain things to make sure that we meet that demand because as I walked the downtown, a gentleman ran out of the meat market. What was his name? Is he friends of yours? The meat guy? Alright. We were walking down the street, literally, I'm peeking in all the windows. He comes running out and says, "Governor, Governor, I support your housing plan, 3 percent growth means more business because people coming here, more people living here, more money for my business." I said, "This guy gets it. This guy gets it. He understands. He understands."
And so, we also had a chance to talk to Lari and Lori, the owners of The Colony Shop. What a gem that is. It was actually, turns out to be, what was it? Their 75th anniversary today? 75th? 77th anniversary today. Well, I did my part. I just whipped out my credit card. I have a lot more in the truck, but I thought this was adorable for my new grandbaby.
So, a great shop. I'll go back. I'm still not done here. We stopped and saw Dave Bustamante at Gallo, what a great restaurant that is as well. I mean, just a sense of community. He was so proud of how he had hung on. We talked about his loss of his father and his uncle during the pandemic, but he persevered, and he continued on, and so I thank them for just being part of this soul of a community.
And the fact that the workers who work for him could literally live in this community and walk to work. You don't need a car. That's the beauty of communities like this. So, we've had a chance to walk past many of the housing developments - clearly mixed use. You have everything from market rate to supportive housing, artist housing, everything that you need, because guess what? Communities like this have an incredible asset. As we waited for the train to go by.
The fact that you have access one hour from here to Grand Central Station is extraordinary. And that just adds to the quality of life, the opportunity for people to work elsewhere, but live here, or to live there and work here. The reverse commuting opportunities. And so having the Long Island Rail Road here is something that is just a jewel. And it's going to make more dynamic businesses and having walkable communities and all this.
And it's no wonder that people consider this to be such an up-and-coming community. Young people are flocking here. The average age, in most of this area is about 45. I think it's about 36 years old here because young families are coming here. Young tech entrepreneurs, young people with a vision, young artists are congregating to this community because it's so alive, and that's why we want to continue making this part of our state more affordable, more livable and certainly more safe. And this is a shiny example of the kind of communities that people are looking for, they're thirsting for. And we have so many more jobs coming here. You've heard me talk about this for years.
We have Kevin Law here. Kevin and I knew each other for many, many years working together. And now, he's the Chairman of Empire State Development and we talk about all the new industries that are coming here to replace the old legacy businesses, what we're doing with life sciences and biosciences and offshore wind, and all the opportunities for great jobs to be created here. And it's unlimited.
You know, we just invested last year - and I know Chuck Lavine is here and Phil Ramos. I want to thank them for their leadership here. Please stand up. You know, making sure that we had money for Long Island. They said, "We don't want to leave the budget process until we deliver at least $350 million for Long Island," and you delivered. And because of that, we've been able to commit to more projects, again, that'll be creating more jobs right here. The Long Island Investment Fund, $56 million is already committed to Feinstein Institutes, Farmingdale, Stony Brook to invest in them because that's where we're creating the jobs. And I see John nodding his head, the President of Farmingdale, and thank you for putting those projects out there in front of us so we can seize upon them.
And a new accelerator program, $50 million and drawing more opportunities with a venture capital competition and workforce. So, I'm just saying all these, it's just a broad picture to paint that we have unlimited potential here on Long Island for more growth.
People want to be here. The schools are fantastic. And yet, too many feel shut out. Patchogue shows what real success looks like. It can feel tangible, people walk down the streets. That didn't just happen. If we just let life go by without stepping up and saying, "People need to live here. They have to have a place to live," this would be at a ghost town that it started to be. It truly would. And you turn the trajectory of that around.
And that's what I want to point to, how we can upgrade our communities. Because if you don't grow, you stagnate. When you're stagnant, you die. And that's what can happen in communities that don't embrace the opportunity to say, "Guess what? People want to be here. The employers want to be here, businesses want to come here," but where are the employees going to live? We've created so many more jobs than ever before, but we've not kept pace with building the housing. And communities large and small all have a capacity to just grow a little bit more. Some want to grow big; some want to keep their small character. I understand that and they should. But we have to open up the doors so we can get people to be able to live here.
And you think about the price of housing here. Newsday on the cover, housing up 66 percent in the past 10 years. To everyone fortunate enough to own a house on Long Island, you're probably not going to go up to a bigger one. You're probably going to have to stay right there. There's no mobility. You will not be able to afford - you wouldn't be able to afford the house you're living in right now if you had to all over again. And you know what that means? That your kids can't afford to live in the same neighborhood. Your own kids will never be able to grow up around you, someday grandparents. And on the other end of life's spectrum, senior citizens, the grandparents who want to stay in the community, maybe downsize to a townhouse or a little apartment. If the housing is not there, they can't afford it, they're stuck as well, and they might go to a cheaper state all together.
And so, we know that New Yorkers, half of all New Yorkers, are what they call cost burdened, and we talk about affordability all the time. I live and breathe the issue of affordability. Whatever I can do as Governor to make New York State more affordable. When you look at your monthly bills, your biggest bill is either your rent or your mortgage, right? Those are the ones, top of the list. In order to have more affordability in a state where more than 50 percent of people spend 30 percent or more on their rent or mortgage, the second highest in the nation. You know, we have to turn that dynamic around. And so, it's real basic economics. You have high demand, but low supply, the price goes up. But if you have more supply to meet the demand, the price goes down. That's all we're talking about. Giving people the chance to live in their homes, build capital, build wealth by buying that first little condo and eventually you can progress through life.
I saw my own family do that. My parents started out living in a trailer park, so my brother was born there. Rumor is he used to sleep in the top drawer. It was tiny, but I'm not sure that's true. I wasn't there. I came along nine months later, and they moved into a little two-bedroom flat above an apartment right near the steel plant where my dad worked. And they thought that was great, you know? Wow, all this space for two babies. Amazing. And then when more kids came along, there was a Cape Cod. One of those little Sears kid houses. And then when there were six kids, we got a bigger house, and I was able to share an attic with two brothers. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but we survived. We didn't have heat up there. We didn't have cooling up there - you know, air conditioning, but it was a big family. You just did what you did. We thought we lived a good life, and we were living a good life. We had a home; my parents bought a home. That was everything to us. And then as life went on, my parents were able to upgrade as their costs went down, we all left home. So, I could see through my own family's story what that means to people, and I want that same opportunity available to everyone.
That's what I'm focused on with this plan. And people are moving out of our state, not that they don't love New York, but they just can't afford it anymore. And I want to stop that trend before it becomes out of control. And we can. The issue is we can, but look at what's happening in neighboring states. Who are we competing with? New Jersey. New Jersey has built four to five times more housing in the same timeframe per capita than we have here on Long Island. So, your kids may be growing up in New Jersey whether they want to or not, because they want to stay in this region. And these are not just statistics. There's a story - young adults who aren't coming here. And I know that we can do so much better, whether it's like I said, our seniors, our business owners, business owners like Derek, who you'll hear from in a couple minutes, all struggling to be able to live here. But I'm committed to fixing this. I know it's not easy. But I don't do easy. I do what's right. And that's why, in my budget, I proposed a brand-new New York Housing Compact. I proposed that New York State has the capacity and the will to build over 800,000 new housing units over the next decade.
It's ambitious, but I know we can reach it together. And we set home creation targets for cities, towns, villages, that are realistic and achievable and if you don't think so, we'll talk about it and we'll show you how. And local leaders are driving this process to ensure that housing keeps pace with the demand of the employers and the young people and the people that want to come here. We have to meet that demand. And communities will have all the flexibility they want.
And what do I know about this? I spent 14 years on a town board. Every single Monday night we were reviewing housing plans and economic development plans. I worked with the town board, the planning board, the zoning board, the traffic safety board. We did SEQR. We did environmental reviews. I know what this is all about. I've lived it. I know all the ways that a town can say yes to a project. And I know all the ways they can say no to a project. And so, we want communities to have the flexibility. A master plan. We devised our master plan upgrade, the first time in 20 years while I was there. We said commercial here, retail here, open space, farmland here, and then our little villages. And then we had room for housing. And to execute our new housing, we had to have more sewers. We didn't have the money for that. So that's stymied some of our growth.
We also want people to repurpose some of the abandoned buildings. You know, look at how much life has changed when people stopped going to malls. They're sitting in their house clicking for the purchases they would've made walking through a mall. It's sad, but I can't change that right now. That's the reality. So, what are we going to do with these malls and strip plazas? They deteriorate, they decline. They affect the psychology of a community if you don't do something positive with them. That's what we're talking about. Move them toward multi-family units. We'll put incentives on the table.
But municipalities, you can do whatever you want in terms of just creating some growth. And yes, people say, "Why? Why? Why?" Because the status quo has not worked. I'm not the one who comes to Long Island every week and hears how expensive it is. The people living here know this. They know that housing is too expensive. It is too scarce. You cannot find an apartment. You cannot find a home. You cannot find anything you can afford anymore, and that is a crisis.
So, if we had kept pace with other states, other regions, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, they're all growing two, three, four times higher than we have. We wouldn't have to be having this conversation. It would've happened organically, but it didn't. We can wait forever. Hope it changes. Or we can meet the demand of employers and people who want us to build more houses, and that's what we're talking about.
One way to focus on this is transit-oriented development. This should not make anyone afraid, because obviously when a train came through your community, it increased property values, the value of a community, access to people, to good paying jobs. It changed people's lives. Over 100 years ago when the Long Island Rail Road first came through here. But why aren't we capitalizing on the fact that the land around many of these stations, at the end of the day, and people are done parking in a parking lot, there's like tumbleweed blowing through it. It's worthless.
Just imagine if that land had first floor retail on it, next couple floors, parking levels, so you could double, triple the parking in a downtown area so people aren't parking on the side streets. And then put in all levels of housing. It doesn't even have to be that high. You can do this. It just takes creativity and I guarantee there will not be a single empty unit, whether it's condos, market rate condos, whether you put in townhouses there, whether you put in housing that's affordable for people.
There is such demand, such demand for this, and I've seen fabulous examples of that right here on Long Island. I brag about what you've done here in places like Patchogue and Ronkonkoma and Wyandanch. And this railroad, you know, whether it's Westbury, Wyandanch, we've seen how this has been transformed.
We're going to keep making the investments and I do encourage you to take the ride down to Grand Central Madison because it is beautiful, the artwork - get ready for a nice, long escalator ride. It's about 1.35 minutes. Someone once said to me, "What are people supposed to do while they're waiting so long on that escalator?" I said, "They should probably meditate. Just calm down. Think about how wonderful life is." I don't know that New Yorkers can do that very easily, but I'm going to still suggest that.
But I want to thank all the leaders on Long Island who have made this happen. You have given us the examples, you've broken through. You did it before your time, before other people were saying this is a demand. You saw the future needs and you met them. That's why places like Patchogue are so vibrant and so desirable. This is the model we're talking about and there is no one size fits all approach.
And I also mentioned, I know there's need for infrastructure. I get it. If you want to build housing sometimes in Long Island, you need a lot more sewers. I'm not sure why no one thought to build sewers a long time ago, but Long Island needs sewers. The County Executive has been trying and trying and trying, and most parts of our state don't even think about it. Of course, it's sewered. It's something we take for granted, but Long Island's special, we need to help you with the sewers.
And so that is my commitment to make this become a reality, to make this a reality. We have $250 million on the table right now. Now some will say, "That's not enough." Okay, help me spend it and prove to me that you need more. That's what I say, "Bring me the projects, show us what you want to do. Show us the growth pattern." I'll make sure the infrastructure works for you. And if we run out of money, that means the process is working and we'll get you some more. But first, let's start doing it. Let's just start moving.
And for smaller communities that don't have big planning departments, I had a lot of small towns around me growing up. We'll help you out. We are putting $20 million and if we need more, we'll put more behind the planning assistance funds to help you see the possibilities behind that old warehouse or that abandoned strip mall or that parking lot. What can you do at the parking lot? And we're not talking about changing the character of communities. Because I fought, I ran for Town Board, I've had 14 elections. That's a lot. And every time I talked about protecting the quality of life in my community, but it wasn't just protecting what we had, it was also improving it. That's the difference. You can protect and keep it the way it is. Or you can say how we make it even better.
So, we're not talking about changing the character of communities either. And I know that's so important cause that's our identity and that's something we uniquely have here in New York State, especially here in Long Island.
So, I'm excited about this New York Housing Compact. I really am. I'm energized by it. I will speak to anybody, anytime about it and I have a great team that's committed to this, but I need to grow our army. And I'm looking at a room full of people who are thought leaders. Who have voices that people listen to. I need you to be out there overcoming people's fears and hesitation, saying, "My God, a few years from now - five years, 10 years from now - people will say New York State, we didn't just catch up. We just succeeded. We surpassed everybody else because we finally gave people an affordable way of life here in New York, starting with their housing."
So, we're here to support and get this moving. But I also know that one of the reasons people want to be here is we have outstanding schools. Congratulations to all the leaders of our schools here. They are exceptional. But we also know that there's - and when I come out to Long Island, I joke about the fact that we're always talking about potholes. I took care of your potholes. You know that, right? Okay. Alright. If you see a pothole, give me a call. But I think I wiped out, about a half a million of them last summer. We talk about property taxes as well, right? Well, having done my local budgets for 14 years, I know that the pie chart shows that the majority of your property taxes are school taxes.
So, we allocated this year the largest investment in school aid in the history of our state, $34.5 billion on top of last year's record amount. So, that's on top of last year. So, that's the largest school aid increase ever. Now, that is $4.8 billion more for Long Island - more for Long Island, and an increase of $75 million in our Foundation Aid as well, upwards of 19 percent increase. What do you do with a 19 percent increase? I have an idea for you. We talk about the cost of property taxes. I think this is an opportunity for our schools to meet their needs, schools to invest in programs I think are so important, like mental health services for our kids who are still struggling.
But school districts, I'm giving you the opportunity to make you real popular in your communities by taking this opportunity to take this money and reduce the tax burden on the people who live in your community. So, let's start focusing on that. So, some already followed last year, Westbury, William Floyd, they cut their school taxes last year because we gave them so much great support there. And I also expect others to follow suit this year.
So, people want to live in an affordable community, but also, they also want to live in a safe community. And I know this. This is an issue that affects so many people. If you are anxious about your safety, your kid's safety, when they go off to school or saying goodbye to your spouse or partner on their way to work, you just don't have the peace of mind you deserve. So that's why since I took office a year and a half ago, public safety has been my number one priority, and I have worked tirelessly to drive down, especially the violent crime rates and this crime surge. It was all across the country. And some days sociologists will have to help us figure out why. You know, what happened during that pandemic, that time of isolation and time of despair, time of tremendous loss, how that resulted in a nationwide spike in all kinds of crimes. So, I don't know that answer, but I do know that there have been families affected here on Long Island, in particular, because of gun violence.
We have incredible individuals here who stood up after losses in their own families. You know, Moms Demand Action are really strong here as well, and so we knew we had to strengthen our gun laws. I thank the legislature for teaming up with us on this. We had a hands-on approach, and we're starting to see the impact of this, but I know as a government, I can't just tell the localities to do more without helping fund that.
So, we're putting in our budget $337 million to help reduce and prevent gun violence. That's an increase. That's an increase of over $110 million from last year in the first place. And we're talking about services for young people, diversion programs, opportunities for them to get a summer job, a job during the school year, help them find a better path so they don't fall prey to gun violence on the streets. We have to give them alternatives, but also, I want to make sure that we're taking another look at our bail laws and giving judges the clarity, they need.
Because right now, there's an inconsistency in our bail laws, and there's confusion as to what judges can do, particularly when it comes to violent, serious offenses and for repeat offenders. That is just common sense. I want to get this done in my budget. I need your support, and I know we can get there. I feel confident we can get there, but also, we think about the challenges facing communities.
I mentioned mental health a few times. We have to stabilize this whole phenomenon and remove the stigma for people to get care. But if we don't have the ability to provide that care, then it's all just talk. That's why I've talked about $1 billion, $1 billion, a record investment, largest commitment in our history to make sure that we deal with everything from adding more beds, to supportive services, to whatever people need so we can have that complete continuum of care, so they don't fall prey to having to live on the streets or have a different life altogether. We can take care of people. So, I'm declaring that the end of ignoring the needs of mental health for our residents is finally, finally over.
So, our billion dollars is going to help transform this. I put a lot on the table for you. It's actually shorter than a lot of the other ones I give. I didn't go through how many potholes I fix and everything, but I did want to focus on housing here because I know if we can win the hearts and minds of people here on Long Island and break down the fear and the narrative that gets created and spun out of control that people all start believing in, which is not the truth about what our objectives are.
This is about making Long Island be the best it can be because we've come a long way. We've been through a lot together. We've seen the downward trends. We've seen the beginnings of a comeback, but that comeback will never be complete if we don't provide housing that people can afford. And that to me is the greatest challenge facing us right now.
The only thing holding us back here on Long Island, and I know we can get through this, I am so confident in this. All I know is that from my opinion, doing nothing is not an option. So, thank you, thank you for being part of this journey. Hopefully in the next few weeks, part of a success, part of a legacy that we'll be creating while others will look at us as the model of what courageous leadership looks like.
And we'll break through any barriers that come before us. So, so thank you everyone. And with that, I'd like to introduce our Mayor, Paul Pontieri. Thank you.