March 8, 2023

Under the rallying cry of a housing crisis in the New York metropolitan area, politicians have begun a double-barreled assault against affluent suburban communities and the owners of multi-family residential properties.  Their ideologically driven plans are based on false premises and designed to grant developers free rein over local zoning and state environmental laws.  Proposed legislation in New York and Connecticut has ignited a battle between the liberal suburban enclaves and the radical Democrats in New York City and Hartford that could awaken the suburbanites to the malevolent nature of radical progressivism.

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In January, New York governor Kathy Hochul unleashed her New York Housing Compact for 800,000 new units over ten years.  Hochul Housing would mandate that each municipality served by the Metro North transit system increase its housing stock by 3% every three years or face punitive measures, including state pre-emption of local land use decision-making.  In addition, she proposed Transit Oriented Development (TOD) zones within a half-mile radius of every train station.  Municipalities closest to New York City would have to meet or exceed a density of 50 units per acre.

Hochul Housing is the second attempt in two years to force a heavy-handed, state-controlled approach on municipalities to increase housing stock, without any consideration of widely varying land use issues and in violation of the state’s constitutional protection of local home rule on zoning.  A year ago, her efforts were successfully opposed by suburban mayors, state legislators, and residents.  Sharper and more public bipartisan opposition has reappeared ahead of the April 1 budget deadline.

In neighboring Connecticut, advocacy group DesegregateCT is making its third attempt to pass the “Work Live Ride Act,” which would mandate high-density housing around Metro North train stations. Greenwich, the first town in Connecticut on Metro North, would be required to have a density of 30 homes per acre.  No coincidence that DesegregateCT is an affiliate of the powerful Regional Planning Association (RPA), a New York City–based not-for-profit whose donor list includes some of the nation’s and region’s largest real estate developers.

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These efforts are based on the premise that there is a housing crisis created by restrictive suburban zoning laws.  This is risible, given regional population and construction trends.  Between July 1, 2020 and July 1, 2022, New York had a net migration loss of 651,742 individuals, or 3.24% of the population.  Connecticut’s population is flat, and New Jersey’s annual loss is about 1%.

At a rate of negative net migration of 300,000 people a year, in ten years, New York will have 3 million fewer people, obviating Hochul Housing’s claim for an urgent need of 800,000 new units.

As she pitches Hochul Housing across skeptical suburbs, Hochul claims that employers want to be in New York.  In fact, employers are leaving New York.  In a report issued in October 2022, New York State comptroller Tom DiNapoli shows that the city’s share of all jobs in the financial services industry, a longtime mainstay of the region’s tax revenue and employment, is at a 33-year low of 17.7%, compared with a 33% share two decades ago.

More companies plan to depart the Empire State.  A recent survey of major employers by the Partnership of NYC found that 22% of financial services firms plan to reduce headcount in the city over the next five years.  Overall, 13% of respondents plan to reduce their NYC workforces.

The proponents of TOD and eliminating local zoning control bewail the housing cost burden, which is about 50% in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.  Yet Connecticut and New Jersey are not losing as many residents as New York, and the region’s most popular outmigration destination, Florida, has a much higher housing cost burden, according to the Population Reference Bureau.

Another false premise by the housing crisis alarmists is that Big Government is needed to facilitate new construction.  Multi-family housing construction is occurring all over metro New York, with multi-family units far exceeding single-family construction.  In fact, construction of multi-family housing is at a 50-year high, according to the National Association of Realtors.  New multifamily construction in the N.Y.-Newark–Jersey City region between January and July 2022 was 33,158 units, up 28%.  White Plains mayor Thomas Roach claims that 7,000 new units are underway in Westchester.