BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Gov. Kathy Hochul announcing $800,000 affordable units over the next decade to remove housing barriers in New York State.
This comes after Hochul realizing a housing shortage in New York State.
“And our goal for housing stock and communities is to have downstate to go up by three percent and upstate by 1 percent every three years. It’s very manageable,” she says.
But there are some things about the executive plan that aren’t settling for some.
“What’s more troubling is that we might have to give up the zoning laws,” says West Seneca Town Supervisor Gary Dickson.
Dickson tells 7 News reporter Yoselin Person he’s not disputing Gov. Hochul’s plan if there’s a housing crisis, but he’s against the state changing local zoning laws.
“Changing it would be extraordinarily and really going against the will of the community. Nobody isn’t against more housing,” he says. “That’s great. We just want to be able to control the way that we do it and always done it.”
Other Western New York officials like Amherst Town Supervisor Brian Kulpa already have plans in the works to redesign areas like the Boulevard Mall to create a blend of affordable housing and retail space.
“This makes everybody to want to negotiate to try and get people to move,” Kulpa says. “You’re going to either say I really need to stay here and negotiate a future lease on a site or negotiate a lease in a different building and try to make everybody understand there’s change coming.”
Gov. Hochul also wants $50 million to create a homeowner stabilization fund to provide critical home repairs in ten key low-income communities that are mostly made up of homeowners of color.
“Let’s help people we can do that and we will support the change of zoning laws and making it easier to build housing,” Gov. Hochul says.
Hochul's budget also includes a multi-year investment to help protect renters in Upstate New York.
The state legislature has until April first to approve the budget.
