ALBANY, NY -- Senate Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, along with Senators Jack Martins, Pam Helming, and Mark Walczyk, members of the Senate Housing Committee, and members of the Senate Republican Conference, today unveiled a comprehensive package of housing legislation designed to help New Yorkers build homes that are affordable in an effort to keep homeowners here in the Empire State.

The Senators were joined at a Capitol news conference by Humberto Lopes, Executive Director of Gotham Housing Alliance and CEO of HL Dynasty, a construction, investment, development, and management company with a portfolio consisting of residential, commercial, and industrial properties.

The package includes affordability incentives for first time homeowners and lowers the construction costs by removing regulatory burdens such as streamlining the environmental review process to build homes. The package aims to increase housing supply by establishing a task force composed of local government officials, state agencies, and other stakeholders to develop best practices for local governments to incentivize housing development. In addition, the package includes legislation that ensures rent controlled and stabilized housing goes to those who need it most.

“For too many New Yorkers, the housing crisis is not abstract. It means young families cannot afford to buy their first home, seniors are struggling to remain in the communities they helped build, and too many residents are considering leaving the state altogether. High property taxes, regulatory burdens, and rising construction costs continue to push homeownership further out of reach. These proposals take a practical approach to lowering costs, increasing housing opportunities, and restoring a clear path to homeownership so families can build their futures here in New York instead of looking elsewhere,” said Senator Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick

Included in the package unveiled today are proposals that would:

Increase Housing Supply

S.538 (Martins) - Means test rent-controlled apartments to ensure that people who need affordable housing are occupying them.

S.529 (Martins) - Establishes the local initiatives task force on housing, in order to collaborate with local government officials, state agencies, and stakeholders to develop best practices for local governments to incentivize housing development.

S.576 (Helming) - Create tax incentives for manufactured housing developers to build affordable homes in rural areas.

Homeownership Affordability

S.850 (Helming) – Provides a first-time homebuyer tax credit for local property taxes.

S.8489 (Weber) – Freezes real property taxes for three years to provide relief to New York homeowners. New York has some of the highest property taxes in the nation.

S.852 (Helming) - Give homebuyers who rehabilitate dilapidated properties an exemption from property tax reassessment.

Lower Construction Costs

S.1167 (Mattera) - Repeal the All-Electric Building Act. The all-electric mandate will increase the cost of the average single-family home by about $20,000.

S.8621 (Mattera) - Allow building developers to comply with the less costly and less burdensome 2020 Energy Codes in lieu of the 2025 Energy Code. This would result in lowering the cost of an average single-family home by approximately $7,400.

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