Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul’s Housing Plan Delivers Record Progress Toward State’s Five-year Housing Goal

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced record-breaking progress toward the State’s five-year housing goal, with more than 22,000 affordable homes created or preserved during Fiscal Year 2025-26, the highest single-year production for Governor Hochul’s five-year housing plan. New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) has financed the creation or preservation of more than 81,000 affordable homes over the first four years of the Governor’s Housing Plan, putting the State on track to meet its goal of 100,000 affordable homes ahead of schedule. In addition to this historic investment in affordable housing, the Governor has also proposed her Let Them Build agenda, a series of common-sense reforms to the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act that will speed up development and lower costs of housing and infrastructure in general.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

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

 Good morning, everyone. Come on in, Mr. Washington. Come say hello — one of our all-star veterans who spent 30 years working at the Veterans Administration, and now this is his home. That is why I am so proud to be here to deliver the extraordinary news that a goal I set forth to achieve five years ago — that we build 100,000 affordable housing units in five years — we are beyond where we thought we'd be after year four. We have exceeded our targets. We are here to celebrate the completion of 22,000 housing units, almost an historic number for the number built in a year and certainly the highest of my tenure. And over 81,000 homes built thus far, so we are going to exceed our goal of 100,000. So, that is great news.

Let’s look down more closely at what that really means to people. And we are here today at 35 Broadway in Menands, a lovely community. And because we have announced that there are 67 affordable apartments for the community, but beyond that, and this is why I want to give a special shout out to Bruce Buckley, the CEO of Soldier On, and thank him for what he is doing.

This has 35 apartments for veterans who have been homeless or at risk of losing their homes. I mean, when you think about the debt that society owes our veterans, it is a volunteer army and has been since the end of the Vietnam War. Anyone who serves does so by choice, which means the one percent who sign up and are willing to put their lives on the line to defend our freedoms should be honored and celebrated and never end up in a spectrum of being homeless upon the return from their duty.

That is why we are committed to helping them, and I want to thank RuthAnne Visnauskas, first of all, for her work as the Commissioner Head of Homes and Community Renewal extraordinary work. We gave her this goal; she is meeting it. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. Commissioner Barbara Guinn, the Office of Temporary Disability Assistance, thank you for what you do to help people, lift people up every single day, and I am so proud of that work. Doreen Harris, making sure that NYSERDA is on the ground and making sure that our buildings are energy efficient and using assistance from NYSERDA as well. I have got the dream team behind me. You want to get something done, these are the individuals. Dara Kovel, the CEO of Beacon Communities, who is one of the developers, who understands how important projects are to people like us, and to people like Mr. Washington here. This, as I mentioned, Soldier On has a location on site to make sure that we get people the support and the homes they need and homes are hard to come by. Whether you are a veteran, whether you are a young person, whether you are someone who wants to downsize, we have a real housing crisis in this state and something I have been talking about, almost nonstop for going on five years.

Rents are too damn high because housing is scarce, and you cannot solve a housing crisis without having the guts, the resources, and the vision to build more homes. As I mentioned, we had a historic five year, $25 billion housing plan, and then a few years after that, we secured the most significant housing package in 50 years. And like I said, if we can build with state assistance and go to communities where there is high demand, build 100,000 units, then there is no stopping us. I want to continue to re-up that goal. I will tell you about that later. But because New Yorkers have waited long enough, they cannot wait any longer for housing they can afford. So, as I said, we have created or preserved more than 22,000 units, and 81,000 units since the beginning, so ahead of our target for next year.

But this is why I'm also fighting for my ‘Let Them Build’ agenda right now in the budget. And if we can find another way to remove unnecessary barriers, the redundancy and reviews that exist now, the sometimes upwards of two years extra to go through the SEQRA reviews, a law that has been in place since 1975. Well-intended, very important, no one is undermining SEQRA laws. But since that time, there have been many more environmental laws to protect communities on top of that, and so now this has become more of a dilatory opportunity for people. People want to stop projects, this is what often happens. People use SEQRA as a reason to go to court and to delay or shut down projects altogether because of the rampant Nimbyism that exists in our state.

So, I want to speed up development. I want to lower the costs for all developers, not just affordable housing developers, but everyone, to lower the cost of building, because guess what? In light of the tariffs, which have been wreaking havoc on our state and the nation, the cost of everything, building supplies, the lumber we get from Canada, the aluminum, tariffs have just increased the cost of building beyond what anyone ever could have expected a year ago, and that is incredibly unfortunate and an intentional decision by the Trump administration to do so.

We want to get our budget done, get the SEQRA reforms in them. I feel pretty optimistic right now, but we are almost done. But I think that will unlock the ability to build the housing that we thus far have lacked the ambition to do, and because of that, we have been held back. When people leave our state, they go to five places. Sometimes it is Texas, sometimes it is Florida. Although, I'm starting to see this an out migration from Florida, check the facts — it is interesting. They go to other cities and states that are not far from here. You know, they are going over to Connecticut, they are going over to New Jersey, they are going to Pennsylvania, for only one reason. It is not better weather, not necessarily a better governor — maybe they think so, I don't know. They are all my friends. But they went because they built more housing, therefore the housing costs less in those states. And I cannot tolerate that any longer in New York. That is why I am coming at this with a strength and commitment from my administration and why we are proud to announce we are making real impacts here.

Also, you have to ask the question, why it takes fifty percent longer to build a project in New York than other states. Fifty percent longer. Look how many more projects we could have underway right now, more people, more veterans. There are waitlists for veterans for all these projects. That should not be the case. We should break down artificial barriers that are stopping the ability to build. We have the developers who want to do it, we are committed to doing it, and we have to get through these laws that are holding us back. Again, always protecting the environment, but in a way that is right now we have to stop these unnecessary delays from the current rules around SEQRA. Now, I know a little bit about this. I spent fourteen years in local government. What did I do? I was liaison to the planning board, the zoning board, the traffic safety board, and the environmental review board. So I know all the ways that when someone wants to stop a project, what they do, and they can be very successful, but we cannot let that be the status quo any longer in the great state of New York. I will not tolerate that.

I want to continue protecting the environment. We are not rolling back environmental protections. We are not eliminating local review, permits or approvals.This is all about the locals. This is about a community that wants something to go forward, but there are state laws that are being used against their efforts and thwarting their ambition. We are going to continue to focus on our agenda and this is what we are fighting for. We are fighting for people like Mr. Washington, a place where veterans have the dignity of a decent home that this beautiful building we are in right here, where seniors can afford to retire in the same neighborhoods where they grew up, where families do not have to choose between paying rent and buying new school clothes, or taking the kids on a summer vacation.

We are taking on this crisis head on, and it was ambitious when we set forth to do it, but I could not be prouder that we are making great success, but I will be here as long as necessary to deliver on this affordability agenda. So, let's get it done, and I want to congratulate everybody who has been involved in this extraordinary project.

Let me bring up Dara who is going to talk about what Beacon Communities is doing and thank her for her commitment. Thank you.