When New York Governor Kathy Hochul introduced a plan to build 800,000 housing units over the next decade, opponents immediately conjured up worst-case scenarios. Such an ambitious goal would require her to destroy America’s long tradition of local self-rule, shattering the uncrowded idyll of New York City’s suburbs and forcing them into a densely populated future.
In the case of Cedarhurst, a village of about 7,000 people on Long Island less than an hour’s commute east of midtown Manhattan, it’s really just a matter of 0.004 square miles.
That’s about the size of the largely industrial site, on Pearsall Avenue just a couple blocks from the train station, where a developer wants to build a three-story apartment complex. The modest project wouldn’t alter the community’s character or come close to solving the problem of exorbitant housing costs. But it would satisfy Cedarhurst’s initial housing-growth target under Hochul’s proposal, while also giving New York City a bit more room to grow, putting $4 million in the municipal coffers, and boosting the local economy.
The fact that such an obviously useful project is mired in litigation reflects a deep dysfunction in the way communities like Cedarhurst decide what can go where. Local land-use rules and state environmental laws empower longtime residents to block precisely the kind of multifamily developments that would most effectively address housing shortages, even as ever-larger mansions encroach unimpeded on their humble bungalows. The process also excludes crucial constituencies, such as the people who would live there if they could, and the millions of Americans who would benefit from a more dynamic housing market.
This broken model has proved mostly impervious to positive incentive. State and federal efforts to reward local land-use reform have fallen flat. When Massachusetts offered direct payments in return for “smart growth” plans allowing more multi-family housing, it gained just 3,500 new units over 13 years, largely outside the Boston commuting area. The relatively well-off neighborhoods capable of making the biggest difference simply weren’t interested, preferring to stick with the same zoning rules that produced today’s sprawling, car-congested suburbs.
How should states respond?
Hochul’s proposal for New York represents a reasonable mix of policies tested elsewhere. It would require municipalities to rezone for multi-family housing within a half-mile radius of rail or subway stations, and give them three years to meet housing-growth targets of 1% upstate and 3% downstate. It wouldn’t dictate what class of housing should be built, but would offer a bonus for the affordable kind. It would also provide $270 million to offset infrastructure and planning expenses. Only in the extreme, if a community persistently missed its targets, would the plan allow developers to seek permission from the state to proceed without local approval.
Nobody is advocating development at all costs. The state would have to tread carefully, particularly where the environment is concerned. Long Island, for example, gets all its potable water from underground aquifers that must be (and aren’t yet) prudently monitored and managed. That said, new apartments on already-developed land, such as the Pearsall development, would entail much less burden per unit of housing than single-family homes with water-intensive lawns.
Neither Hochul’s plan nor the Pearsall project will end the housing crisis on their own. But by demonstrating how the right model of development can enhance rather than threaten the suburban way of life, both can help break the impasse and move the whole country in a more constructive direction. To that end, legislators in Albany should support Hochul, and the Pearsall project’s opponents should let it proceed.
The American dream must evolve — to make room for future generations and for a more diverse and prosperous nation. This needn’t require those who are living it to give up what they’ve worked so hard to achieve — the plots of land, the two-car garages, the sense of space. On the contrary, they have a lot to gain.
Brian Costello, 67, has lived for nearly 40 years in the Long Island community of Patchogue, which over the past couple of decades has transformed the area near its train station into a thriving community of apartments, stores and restaurants. The painting contractor, now retired, raised his five children in a single-family home just a short walk from the new development. He says his neighborhood is at times a little noisier than it used to be, but he enjoys hanging out at the kava café that recently opened nearby. Overall, he says, the transformation has been good for the 130-year-old village.
“My kids love it.”
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