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Hochul and lawmakers struck a state budget agreement this week that will raise eligibility for senior and disabled rent freezes, and revamp tax exemptions for building repairs. But it won’t fund more housing vouchers.
New York State’s budget is finally here, after protracted negotiations extended past Memorial Day, making it the latest budget in 16 years.
Lawmakers were pushing the governor on a number of key housing policy items—measures that will impact housing development, maintenance, and rent for some low income New Yorkers.
Here’s what made it in and what didn’t:
- Gov. Kathy Hochul will “let them build,” passing comprehensive reform to environmental review processes that some policymakers say make it prohibitively expensive and time consuming to build housing and other infrastructure, like climate resiliency projects. The measures allow faster environmental review, which can sometimes take years and cost millions of dollars, for housing projects under 250 units citywide and up to 500 units in medium- and high-density parts of New York City.
“Housing and infrastructure projects can take as much as 56 percent longer in New York State to get from concept to groundbreaking compared to peer states,” said Gov. Hochul in a statement. “The Budget includes landmark reforms to slash through the red tape and government bureaucracy that has stymied desperately needed housing.” - The budget agreement increases the eligible income for senior and disabled rent stabilized tenants to get their rent frozen in exchange for a landlord tax abatement. New Yorkers with incomes up to $75,000 could now be eligible for the rent freeze programs, called SCRIE and DRIE, which have struggled to get people enrolled. The agreement will also require the state to notify eligible tenants about the initiatives.
Housing advocates had also called for tying the SCRIE and DRIE eligibility threshold to inflation, and actually lowering rents for participants paying more than 30 percent of their income toward their housing—but those provisions were not included. - Tax abatements for apartment repairs were renewed for 10 years. The abatement, called J-51, incentives building owners to make improvements in buildings that are at least 50 percent affordable.
Supporters include both landlords and condo owners, who said the abatements enable them to pursue crucial repairs as well as climate upgrades mandated by the city’s new building emissions law, which went into effect this year. - A new tax on expensive second homes—also called the pied-à-terre tax—will place about a 1 percent tax on a few classes of apartments above a certain value. Calculating the actual value of a property under the tax code is no simple task, however. The tax targets homes with a market value of $5 million (the “market value” under the tax code is usually less than the home’s actual value). Starting in 2028, the state will use a different formula based on comparable sales prices for some classes of apartments. The state expects to generate half a billion dollars in revenue from the tax, helping plug the city’s budget deficit.
- Notably missing from the budget was additional funding for housing vouchers for low income New Yorkers through the Housing Access Voucher Program, or HAVP. The governor declined to expand the $50 million-a-year pilot program that will fund just 1,000 vouchers in New York City. Advocates had been pushing for the governor to expand it to $250 million.
“It’s incomprehensible to me how one can talk about affordability and the increasing number of homeless people, and the fact that the federal government keeps cutting assistance—whether it’s food assistance or voucher assistance or various other things that people need—and not respond by increasing number of vouchers for people,” said Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who chairs the Assembly’s housing committee.
Lawmakers had also hoped that additional funding for HAVP could substitute for expiring federal emergency housing vouchers for 5,200 tenants, who will need to find new subsidies or risk eviction in November. Some of those residents may enter public housing or need to find other forms of assistance, often requiring them to move, Rosenthal said.
Here’s what else happened this week in housing—
ICYMI, from City Limits:
- The NYC Commission on Human Rights—the agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws that protect against employment, disability, and housing discrimination, including against rental voucher holders—saw its budget line shrink in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s executive proposal.
- Thousands of heat complaints went unanswered during this winter’s record cold, a City Limits investigation found, due to a policy that tags multiple complaints in the same building as duplicates. The city will now investigate each individually, Mayor Mamdani announced this week—one part of his broader plan to build and preserve new housing across the five boroughs.
- “Come Into My House,” a new video series, explores how everyday New Yorkers create spaces of belonging, joy, and resilience in their communities. The first installment features Harlem actress Marcella Lowery, known locally as the mayor of 116th Street.
ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:
- A Hell’s Kitchen tenant is fighting to stay in one of the neighborhood’s few remaining Single Room Occupancy buildings, or SROs, as its owner seeks to convert it to a hotel, according to The City Reporter (newly renamed).
- The Manhattan DA says more than a dozen people, including relatives of City Councilmember Darlene Mealy, stole the deed of a brownstone in Harlem, Gothamist reports.
- NY1 speaks with Councilmember Sandy Nurse about her revamped Community Opportunity to Purchase Act or COPA, which would give nonprofits an early shot to bid on certain buildings that come up for sale.
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