Budget talks advance after NY Gov. Hochul’s housing plan gets taken off the table

ALBANY — New York may soon have a spending plan in place as Gov. Hochul and legislative leaders work to wrap up budget negotiations that have now stretched more than three weeks past the state’s fiscal deadline.

As a fifth stopgap measure was passed Monday, progress was being made on a number of fronts after the Democratic governor appeared to pull back on some of her top policy priorities. Those include overhauling the state’s approach to housing, according to top lawmakers in both the Senate and Assembly.

“I think we’re getting closer,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said of a final deal on Monday. “There are still a few things that have to be worked out. But hopefully the end is near.”

Heastie said he sees housing talks continuing post-budget after Hochul’s ambitious housing compact — meant to drive development and address New York’s housing shortage by allowing the state to step in and approve projects if a municipality fails to meet certain building goals — failed to win support among lawmakers.

The governor’s proposal would have required downstate areas, including Westchester, Putnam and both Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, to grow their housing stocks by 3% every three years.

Upstate towns would have to meet a target of 1% growth every three years. The state would have had the authority to override local zoning laws and approve projects in towns that fail to meet those targets.

The governor conceded last week that “after weeks of negotiations, the Legislature continues to oppose core elements of the Housing Compact.”

Both chambers of the Dem-led Legislature pushed back on the idea, preferring to offer incentives as a means to push towns to build more and calling for tenant protections for existing renters to be bundled into the plan.

“I think sometimes when you want to make transformative change in policy, there has to be an education period,” Heastie said. “I just think there has to be more of an education period to let people understand what’s at stake.”

Hochul’s plan faced pushback from progressives who wanted lawmakers to focus more on affordability and tenants, as well as suburban lawmakers from both sides of the aisle who argued that the plan amounted to a top-down approach.

“I would say that the housing package … is one of the items that she has pulled back on,” state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) said during a brief floor debate Monday as lawmakers approved the latest budget extender.

The stopgap measure will keep government operations funded and state workers paid through Friday as talks continue between Hochul, Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester).

While housing is off the table and changes to criminal justice reforms including the state’s bail laws appear to be locked up, Heastie said a few other sticking points remain.

Lawmakers are still discussing Hochul’s push to allow more charter schools to operate in the city and environmental measures that could curb the use of fossil fuels for new construction and see large companies pay for pollution.

Also still on the table: $1 billion in state funding Hochul promised to send to the city to help cover the cost of the migrant crisis, as well as a potential statewide plan to cover school meals for all children.

Lawmakers are also considering different ways to fund the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transit Authority after Hochul initially called on the city to pay an additional $500 million a year going forward.

Heastie, who frequently laments the inclusion of policy items in the budget process, said the big ticket items slowed negotiations this year.

“It was a lot. It was a lot of policy. This is why you don’t do policy in the budget,” he said. “I get it, governors have more leverage in the budget, but this is where we are.”