Albany gets nothing done on the state’s broadest crisis

As the legislative session stumbled to an end in Albany, legislators are slinking away having managed to yap much about but ultimately do nothing about the state’s housing crisis.

Housing isn’t some subject that lawmakers can just get to later. We’re not talking about a ceremonial declaration here. Almost everyone agrees that a housing shortage and spiraling rents are a clear emergency in NYC and across the state, a perennial and worsening catastrophe that is worsening practically every other problem we have.

A lack of housing and high costs that rent burden those who do have somewhere to live keeps people from starting businesses and families, from going to school and holding stable jobs, pushes them into hazardous situations and drug use, keeps new people from moving to New York, and so on. It’s a problem that will only compound as people keep being pitted against each other for the limited housing stock.

While the Legislature claims that they had reached an agreement they failed to pass because they couldn’t get the governor’s approval, we’ll remind Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins that there’s no rule that says that everything must be hashed out behind the scenes and presented as a done deal with everyone on board. If they really thought that Gov. Hochul, who introduced an appropriately ambitious housing plan that was quickly taken out behind the shed by NIMBY suburban legislators, was really going to oppose whatever compromise they passed, then fine, they should have passed it and dared her veto. Instead, we’re left with nothing, not even a bill to analyze.

It’s unacceptable. The Legislature must convene an extraordinary session and get a housing package through, ideally with some of Hochul’s bold plans to force recalcitrant localities to actually comply with the state’s housing goals, but at minimum with a 421-a replacement and tweaks like abolishing the FAR cap. If they can’t be bothered, then they can step aside for others who will do the jobs they were elected to do.