North Hempstead Democrats joined with town Republicans and the Nassau GOP last week to oppose efforts to address New York’s housing crisis. 

A shortage of housing, estimated at 800,000 units, has caused rents and housing prices to soar on Long Island, preventing middle-class families, single young professionals and aging residents among others from finding places to live at reasonable prices.

If they are successful, the many critics of a plan presented by Gov. Kathy Hochul would also make it more difficult for businesses to hire employees and deprive downtown districts their best hope of filling empty storefronts in a world now dominated by malls and online shopping.

The officials didn’t actually say they opposed additional housing.

They said they objected to Hochul’s call for a 3% increase in housing units over three years, the possibility of the state stepping in if the 3% goal was not met and the use of transit-oriented developments to achieve that objective.

“Gov. Hochul’s housing plans will flood our communities with thousands of apartments and high-density zoning, turning our suburbs into overcrowded urban centers,” North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena said in advance of a gathering of town and county officials in Port Washington last week.

That is nonsense.

In 2020,  there were 78,822  households in North Hempstead.

To reach Hochul’s 3% goal, another 2,364 housing units would have to be built in North Hempstead over three years – 788 a year. 

Is that really flooding “our communities with thousands of apartments and high-density zoning, turning our suburbs into overcrowded urban centers” as DeSena said? No.

Or a threat to Nassau’s “suburban aesthetic” with “our lush, quiet and peaceful tree-lined streets” as the town board – Democrats and Republicans – said in a letter to Hochul? Of course, not.

The officials are right that Hochul’s plan would potentially remove some control from local officials.

Local governments could choose how the 3% goal was met, but if they did not make “good-faith efforts to grow when proposed housing is languishing for no legitimate reason, the state will implement a fast-track approval process,” Hochul said.

This seems reasonable and is actually little different from the 2% tax cap imposed on local governments by the state under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Under the tax cap, villages, towns and schools cannot raise the tax levy from one year to the next by an amount set by the state, around 2%, unless the budget receives 60% of the vote.

The state tax cap ties officials’ hands but was enthusiastically supported by local officials unable to resist the temptation to spend more.

Hochul’s housing plan addresses the decades-long failure of local officials – especially in places like Nassau County – to permit more homes to be built.

“Hochul has noted the state has created 1.2 million jobs in the past decade but built only 400,000 new housing units,” Newsday reported. “More than half of renters statewide pay 30% or more of their income toward rent. On Long Island, home prices set records last summer, while the number of homes for sale remains close to the lowest it has been in at least 20 years.”

From 1950 to 1970, Nassau County’s population grew from 672,765 to 1.43 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But since 1970, Nassau’s population has declined by 32,306.

This did not happen by accident. Nassau County has some of the most restrictive zoning laws in the country.

This helps explain why New York leads the nation in population loss with about 180,000 leaving the state in 2022.

State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican, said during the 2022 gubernatorial campaign “the greatest threat to New York State and our future viability is the loss of human capital.”

He and U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, (R-Long Island), attributed the exodus to high taxes, increasing government regulation and spiking crime rates.

But does anyone not believe high housing costs and the sheer lack of places to live had nothing to do with it?

North Hempstead’s population has followed a similar pattern as the county. It increased from 142,613 to 235,087 in 1970. Since then in the past 52 years, the population of the town has grown by less than 3,000 to 237,639.

And among 32 counties in New York City and its suburbs, Suffolk ranked 32nd and Nassau ranked 31st in the number of housing permits issued from 2010 to 2020, according to a Regional Plan Association report last year.

Hochul’s housing plan focuses on building transit-oriented developments near train stations – a plan that has been used successfully across the world, including Nassau County in such places as Mineola and Farmingdale.

Its advocates include developers, urban planners and elected officials.

“These state-of-the-art residences will create much-needed workforce and commuter housing for Nassau County’s young professionals and provide much-needed affordable housing that will allow the community’s senior population to live out their golden years in Nassau County,” then Nassau County Executive Mangano said in helping to finance transit-oriented developments in Mineola in 2012. “This project, close to Mineola’s downtown shops and restaurants and Central Nassau’s dense concentration of employers, retail and cultural venues, will generate economic activity throughout Nassau County.”

Will such developments increase housing density?

Yes. Around train stations. The state has supported this approach in recent years with the Third Track and East Side Access projects at a cost of $14 billion. Residents can use the LIRR to commute to their jobs without a car.

And if developments with a combination of retail and residential units cannot be built around train stations, where exactly can the housing be built?

Are transit-orient projects a threat to the suburban dream?

Just the opposite is true if you consider the health of downtown business districts that once served as community centers as part of that dream.

DeSena was among a number of public officials who attended a discussion hosted last week by Destination Great Neck, a grass-roots group filling the leadership void in Great Neck by trying to develop a plan to revitalize the business district.

Residents at the meeting lamented the empty storefronts and aging buildings in the once-vibrant business district stretching nearly two miles from Great Neck Plaza to the Village of Great Neck.

Town officials, unsurprisingly, played little part since villages are responsible for zoning most business districts actually.

And town officials, who are so vocal about Hochul’s plan, have routinely steered clear of playing a role in village zoning decisions, especially in Great Neck.

But when asked whether they would support developing a plan to rezone business districts to permit developments with a mixture of retail stores and apartments as experts recommend, town officials say they prefer to review proposals on a case-by-case basis.

This is tantamount to placing a large sign on the Long Island Expressway saying that developers are not welcome.

Most developers faced with the expense and uncertainty of seeking a variance to local zoning laws to build a mixed-use project will say no thank you. They want to see the property rezoned in advance and even better, a plan for the property around them as well.

That the entire North Hempstead Town Board – both Democrats and Republicans – signed the letter to Hochul tells you where most residents stand on the issue. And the unwillingness of town officials to challenge the status quo.

It is true that existing homeowners benefit from the shortage of housing in Nassau in the form of higher home values.

But vibrant downtown Main Streets where residents can congregate is also part of the suburban dream.

So is a place where young couples can afford a first home, empty nesters can downsize close to where they raised their children, children can return to communities in which they grew up and businesses have a strong talent pool from which to hire.

Hochul’s plan offers that future. Long Island needs to lift the gangplank and let people in to make that happen.