Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now the abundance debate comes to Albany. What does that mean? Is there too much well-intentioned environmental regulation that's making it too hard to build affordable housing? Governor Hochul wants to make environmental review easier for smaller affordable projects. Environmental groups, as you might imagine, have mixed feelings. We'll discuss and take your calls. Now this is a case of, in a way, two progressive impulses coming somewhat into conflict.

Here's the governor from her State of the State address proposing that this be part of the budget package that's due by next Wednesday because more affordable housing is a top priority.

Kathy Hochul: That's why in this budget I'm proposing a simple common-sense update. When communities say yes to housing, infrastructure, clean energy, we're going to let them build.

Brian Lehrer: Now, the governor has the backing of Mayor Mamdani in this effort, another progressive, obviously, who announced what he called a fast-track program of his own yesterday, along with the Regional Plan Association think tank and a group called Open New York that advocates for more housing construction of all types. I'm joined now by their executive director, Annemarie Gray. Annemarie, welcome to WNYC. Thank you for joining us.

Annemarie Gray: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe you can start by telling us a little bit about Open New York and your own background, which I see includes working for the de Blasio and Adams administrations on land use projects as well as being on Mayor Mamdani's transition team.

Annemarie Gray: Yes. I'm the executive director of Open New York. We are a statewide grassroots pro-housing organization working to build more homes and lower rents. I myself spent a decade in government. I was in City Hall for a number of years under two administrations. I was on the transition team and have really been in the middle of this work for a long time, trying to make housing cheaper for New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer: Help us understand the law at issue here. It's the State Environmental Quality Review Act acronym, SEQRA. Can you give us some background on why this was originally passed back in the 1970s and why it was needed then?

Annemarie Gray: Yes, absolutely. Right now, every new apartment building is required to go through SEQRA, the State Environmental Quality Review Act. This was put in place 50 years ago to stop things like dirty power plants or highways bulldozing neighborhoods, but today it's actually often used to block exactly the type of climate-friendly projects that we need. We're talking apartments for seniors next to transit in Manhattan or adding solar panels to a building in the Hudson Valley.

This has become over 50 years, thousands of pages of paperwork, and literally just one person can hire a lawyer and hold up those types of climate-friendly projects using the SEQRA law for years and years. This just literally drives up costs for everyone. The Citizens Budget Commission did some analysis showing that just this process adds $82,000 to the cost of construction for every single new apartment in New York City. New Yorkers are struggling with high housing costs, and we have a clear mandate that they want their government to do everything they can to address housing affordability and speed up these types of projects.

Brian Lehrer: What does Governor Hochul want to see changed here exactly?

Annemarie Gray: This has been a conversation in Albany for multiple years now. A version of modernization of the SEQRA law passed in the State Senate last year. Then the governor also put a slightly different version as a centerpiece of her budget when she released it in January. Then we also saw a version in the State Senate, One-House Budget, last week. Basically, this does a couple of things. It takes a whole subset of projects that we know are--

Again, we're talking about an infill apartment project on a parking lot next to transit. We're taking a whole set of projects that we know are meeting the types of climate goals that we have and moving them to a fast track. There are slight differences between the two proposals, but we really feel like this is really the year. There's finally, really, really strong momentum to pass these. We're running a coalition with the Regional Plan Association and 40 other groups to make that possible.

Brian Lehrer: Hochul is already under fire from environmentalists for wanting to delay implementation of the state's major climate law, how quickly there would be how much reduction of carbon emissions, and replacement of fossil fuels by renewable sources. How far is she asking to go in removing environmental reviews from housing and infrastructure?

Annemarie Gray: I spend my days working primarily on housing issues. I'm very much in solidarity with climate groups that are working on other climate issues. I think the case of SEQRA is actually an example where affordability goals and climate goals really are not at odds. We have a coalition of a lot of groups that includes environmental groups and we're really recognizing that the types of climate-friendly projects that we really need to see so that people have more options to live in places where they don't need a car, they can walk to work, we're actually just making use of land that is already developed and not incentivizing sprawl.

These are exactly the type of projects that we can all agree should not be held up, especially when they've actually-- We're talking about projects that have already gone through the local democratic process. These are community-supported projects that are just getting held up for reasons that usually have absolutely nothing to do with environmental goals. This is actually a case where affordability and climate goals really are absolutely not intention, which is why it's something that I'm working the most on.

Brian Lehrer: I see from a NY1 report that you or people aligned with the position you were just laying out that they're not in conflict, say back in the 1970s, the law was to stop things like dirty power plants or highways bulldozing through neighborhoods, but today it's often used to block exactly the type of climate-friendly projects that we need, like apartment buildings for seniors next to transit in Manhattan or adding solar panels on a building in the Hudson Valley. Why would anybody want to use environmental laws to stop projects that are environmentally friendly? Who would be bringing those suits?

Annemarie Gray: I think it's an excellent question, and exactly why this law is not even working as intended. Over 50 years, the law has come to require thousands and thousands of pages of paperwork. Somebody who doesn't want a project can just find some detail in there that sometimes it has to do about something like neighborhood character, which is not an environmental issue, or a shadow impact. These things are really not actually things that are the most important things to be measuring and making sure we're protecting from a climate, environmental perspective, but they are things that have just been added to the process over decades.

That's exactly why people have figured out how to weaponize it, and anyone who can hire a lawyer can stop that project. Again, it's really important to remember these are projects that have already gone through the democratic process, they're already supported by the community, and they already have a tremendous number of important environmental backstops that any new building would have that gets built in New York.

Brian Lehrer: People who might have some not-in-my-backyard agenda that's not actually related to the environment might use the details of the environmental law to go to court and stop the project under that premise?

Annemarie Gray: Exactly. For things that actually really have nothing to do with us meeting our environment and climate goals. I think you really see that because again, we have a coalition of 40-plus groups, and that includes a lot of groups who are working on environmental issues and really recognize that this doesn't make any sense.

Brian Lehrer: I want to ask you about the position of some environmental groups who have doubts, but listeners, I want to invite you into this as well. Does this sound good to you? Have you ever been caught up in trying to develop smallish affordable housing projects, say, and seen delays that make it not doable? Anybody with personal experience on this to help us report this story? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Do you see the need to speed up smaller developments to ease the housing crunch?

If you're involved in environmentalism, are you conflicted between these two progressive agendas, more affordable housing and strong environmental review laws, or anyone with a question for my guest, Annemarie Gray, the executive director of the group Open New York, which supports these revisions? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call, or you can text.

Annemarie, I see in a Gothamist article that some environmental groups are mostly supportive of the changes because they see greater housing density near transit, especially that as a good thing, but there's pushback from other environmental groups and some local politicians, especially upstate and on Long Island, who are worried that the proposals as written could leave too much room for developers. Do you take those concerns seriously?

Annemarie Gray: Again, I think that there's such a widespread recognition that one, we need to be building more homes in the right places to bring down costs for New Yorkers, and two, that there are ways that this law is currently really being weaponized. There are slight differences between the two proposals that are focused on how do we make sure that this is really ensuring that it's not inadvertently incentivizing sprawl in some places because of how the language is drafted. How are we really making sure that we're getting the caps right of what types of projects and how large the project in what municipality should move to the fast track?

There are some details, but I think that people that are really, really recognizing that we have to do everything we can to bring down the cost of living and to bring down housing costs are recognizing that there are really sensible modernizations that we need to make to this law so that it's not stopping projects that everyone has already agreed should be built.

Brian Lehrer: I guess one of the examples, or one example of some of the exceptions that environmentalists want, this is again from a NY1 report in January, quoting Drew Gammell, senior attorney with the Hudson River-oriented environmental group Riverkeeper. He said every municipality has a very unique personality, unique populations, unique needs. Some municipalities might have more scenic vistas that you want to account for, more historic and cultural resources that should be included and considered before an exemption is granted. I guess Riverkeeper is concerned about those kinds of concerns being marginalized.

Annemarie Gray: I think it's important to remember nothing about the changes that we're talking about, none of these change zoning. Typically, you have a whole zoning process that varies by municipality to really making sure you're deciding what should get built based on those conditions. This is really just making sure that a process that is designed to capture environmental impacts are actually capturing environmental impacts and are not being weaponized by people who are actually not focused on environmental goals.

I think it's really important to remember that this law does not change zoning. Actually, we're seeing a really, really broad support for cutting red tape on a lot of these types of projects. Polling has consistently found three in four New Yorkers really, really recognize that it's time for modernization.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see. I think Stacy in Rockville Center is going to argue that you're not defining environmental broadly enough. Stacy, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Stacy: Hi. Good morning. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan of your show. I used to write environmental impact statements. I'd worked in that field for about six years. I don't anymore, but I just wanted to make clear the framing of just that climate versus housing doesn't capture the whole story. There are many different chapters that you look at. Historic resources was just mentioned by the Riverkeeper. You do noise and vibrations.

When we worked on the 2nd Avenue subway, we looked at if the boring of the machine and the operation of the subway would impact New York Eye and Ear Hospital that was adjacent to it. You have a mitigation chapter. For the example of building housing on a parking lot, you would look at how many children would be there and what the impacts to local schools would be. I just wanted to make sure all of the listeners understood that environmental impact statements really look at more than climate, more than nature. They look at neighborhood character. They look at a lot of different things that I don't know if have been captured in the discussion thus far.

Brian Lehrer: Is this a local concern for you? Are you afraid that something you wouldn't like to see might happen where you are, Rockville Center, on the south shore of Long Island?

Stacy: No, it's not a local concern. It was just when I was listening to the beginning of the conversation and the framing of climate versus housing, I think didn't capture the true full value of documents that are produced through that process. The mitigation chapter, I felt, when I was doing this work, was really the crux of it because while a project may be-- It's going to happen, let's just say.

The mitigation chapter really was where the community concerns could really change things. They could say you have to provide for schools, or in the 2nd Avenue subway situation, we had to put ballast mats when we were in the proposal. Just things that you want someone to think about, and that happens through these processes.

Brian Lehrer: Stacy, we really appreciate your call. Thank you very much. Let's go to Steve in Dutchess County, who says he has some personal experience with the SEQRA environmental review process. Steve, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Steve: Hi, Brian, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Steve: Good. Long-time listener. Really appreciate your show. It's like, man, did I need to call up on this one? I developed a piece of property, it's a little north of New York, but all my consultants were from New York. It's definitely relevant to the issues that are in an urban area. I had a piece of property that was next to what you could call an historic district, but right in the center of the city of Poughkeepsie. The neighbors used certain aspects of the SEQRA review, including neighborhood character and effect on historic resources, to just beat me to death on this property when I tried to do a multi-family development on it for decades.

One of the developments was an affordable housing project for seniors, which enraged them more because they felt it was going to bring down their property values. I hired a historic consultant, an architectural consultant that actually worked for New York State, worked for the New York Office of Historic Preservation, and went out in private practice, private consultation, to work for municipalities, to protect municipalities against developers. I hired him or asked him, "Would you look at this? If you think that it's, ethically, an attractive project and won't affect these historic resources, would you work for me and consult for me?"

He looked at the project and, after reviewing it, he says, "Absolutely, you're doing everything you could possibly do to protect the local historic resources." There's also a very nebulous term within the SEQRA rules, which are 700, 800 pages, that is historic character of the neighborhood, which also can be used as a-- I hate to use the very overused term of weaponization, but can be used as a cudgel for people that just don't want something in their backyard to bring it up at planning board meetings and local council meetings in the case of New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Very interesting anecdote. Do you think that the changes that the governor wants to this environmental review law would solve the problem that you laid out in a case like that?

Steve: I think it would affect it in certain ways. It would make development easier. Now, there are questions. My sister lives in the West Village, and all of a sudden-- Not all of a sudden, but over years, there are buildings that are going up that are throwing shade, and she used to be able to see close to the river. The city needs development. There's two sides to this argument, but it is frequent that neighborhoods, and I believe in housing and I believe in neighborhoods that want to be protected, will pick out-- just as your guest has spoken, they'll pick out a little aspect of the environmental law, and you don't even need a lawyer.

For $35, you can file an Article 78, and you can complain that the review has not been done correctly by the various boards. Then, for 35 bucks, you can go to town and get a few supporters, and right away, you don't even need a lawyer, and you can hold up the works for months.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting, Steve. Thank you for calling in with your experience. We mentioned Riverkeeper before, and some of the questions, at least, that they had about this change in the environmental review law that the governor is proposing for smaller housing projects that are affordable housing projects. I see that Tracy, who is the president of Riverkeeper, Tracy in Westchester, she's going by as a caller, is calling in. Tracy, hello. You're on WNYC.

Tracy: Hello. Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: What you got?

Tracy: Riverkeeper works a lot within the SEQRA space, and that law. We're really familiar with it. We agree that in some instances, it has been weaponized for this kind of not-in-my-backyard application that the last caller spoke about. Generally, we support updating it and modernizing it. It's been around for a few decades, as your guest mentioned, but we're really concerned that the proposal as put forward by the governor is way too broad. Her public messaging is that we have to choose between clean air and clean water, or affordable housing.

First of all, that's not true. As Annemarie Gray said, there's a lot of history of best practices around environmentally friendly housing that generally goes under the term of smart development, but also it's important to point out that, as proposed, this law will do nothing to support affordable housing. It is a broad stroke exemption for a lot of different types of building opportunities. It does nothing to incentivize affordable housing or the smart goals, things like transit, clustered housing.

It's also very broad stroke. It's not refined enough to really support the needs of different communities. It's basically, as proposed, two buckets. Either you've got a city of over a million people, so that's just New York City and the state, or everybody else. Everybody else is in one broad bucket in a manner that's really going to trigger sprawl. Just one more thing, and then I'll stop, which is that this idea of other mechanisms for housing and doing public review, outside of our cities and our larger communities that are able to have a planning board and to have gone through zoning and to have gone through planning, in the smaller communities, they don't have that.

There is no other opportunity for the public to actually say, "Hey, let's look at this project and say, 'What are the impacts in terms of traffic and noise?'"

Brian Lehrer: Those kinds of environmental concerns. Tracy, let me ask you one follow up question to something you said or about something you said, then we'll get a response from Annemarie, and then we're out of time. I understand what you're saying about why you think these changes would be overbroad and would hurt different kinds of communities in the ways that you're describing, but why do you say that it would do nothing to actually enable the kind of small affordable housing development that it's supposedly aimed at? Are you arguing that?

Tracy: Yes, there's nothing in the law that the governor has put forward that specifically gives advantages or raises up in any way to incentivize affordable housing or smart housing. It's just saying, "Let's eliminate opposition in certain areas, like previously disturbed lands," but there's no incentive or advantage to folks who are trying to do affordable or elder care housing in the law as drafted.

Brian Lehrer: Tracy, thank you for calling as the president of Riverkeeper. Annemarie Gray, back to you. As a supporter of these changes the governor wants to make, what do you say to that particular concern and anything else that Tracy raised?

Annemarie Gray: Yes, absolutely. Really happy for those questions. One, I think on some of the specific language questions, this is something that is an active discussion our whole coalition is really engaged in. What are the pieces of the Senate's bill, and what are the pieces of the governor's bill that we think are the strongest? Really, making sure we're focused on this needs to make sure we are not further incentivizing sprawl. I do think that that is a place that is in active discussion of how do you really get the language right?

On the affordability question, I think there are two angles here. Actually, in a lot of conversations with legislators, we've been hearing and discussing how, typically, affordability provisions they do live in zoning, and there's a reason for that, to make sure that they are targeted and designed the way that they should be for different municipalities. That capital A affordable, income-restricted housing really should be defined in zoning instead, which this bill doesn't touch.

Also in general, making sure that we are not holding up smaller housing projects and infill housing in general because of this current review is really important just to make sure we're building a really wide range of types of housing and that research continually shows that building all types of housing really does bring down costs and that we also also need to address income restricted housing through zoning mechanisms. That's actually come out of a lot of our conversations with legislators, of how do you smartly design these processes to get all of the benefits that we're looking for?

Brian Lehrer: We will see what happens with this. The governor is hoping it's going to be in the budget, which would mean passed by the legislature by next Wednesday. Listeners, now, hopefully, you have a better idea of the debate over weakening or revising this particular environmental review law that's taking place for New York State. Annemarie Gray is president, or I should say executive director, of the group called Open New York. Thanks so much for joining us.

Annemarie Gray: Thank you for having me.

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