Hochul’s home run: The governor is making a concerted push to get more housing produced; she must go the distance

Last year, Gov. Hochul included some big housing policy ideas in her budget — then tossed them overboard when opposition mounted, perhaps for fear of energizing the suburbs against her in an election year. This year, she’s leaned in, following through on a bolder, broader housing agenda. Good, gov. Make the case. Twist arms. Win the fight.

The governor went to Long Island Thursday to line up support for her New York Housing Compact. Since Republicans are spouting fearmongering nonsense, like that Hochul is trying to turn Long Island “into the sixth borough of New York City,” let’s be clear on what she wants to do to create hundreds of thousands more places, and therefore many more affordable places, for New Yorkers to live.

She would set home creation targets for localities statewide — with downstate municipalities expected to increase new housing by a manageable 3% over three years and those elsewhere held to a measly 1% target. If a particular burg takes smart steps to try to goose production but they don’t succeed, it’s held harmless. If it doesn’t get results or even try, there are consequences — and housing production can be fast-tracked by the state.

She would require denser, multi-family development to be allowed within a half-mile of an MTA rail station. That doesn’t mean such developments will necessarily spring up — there would have to be interest in building, which is to say demand — but it does mean that parts of the state with immediate access to transit can’t stay single-family forever if there’s market pressure to house more families.

She would invest $250 million in state aid to support housing production statewide and another $20 million to facilitate planning.

Though there’s more, those are the core tools designed to combat the fact that rental and purchase prices have been rising unsustainably as the production of new housing, both in the city and in the suburbs, lags. We need more homes and apartment buildings. Get out the wrecking ball and knock down barriers.