Hochul Pushes SEQRA Reform to Speed Modest Housing Builds, With Staten Island Lessons in Mind

New York’s housing crisis is exacerbated by a well-intentioned law whose review process now hinders rather than helps, threatening both affordability and climate objectives.

In a city once renowned for its breakneck ability to transform, New York now moves with the speed of a continental drift when it comes to building homes. It is not uncommon for an affordable housing proposal—no matter how modest in scale—to spend upwards of two years bogged down in paperwork and public hearings before a single shovel breaks ground. Lewith each passing month, the cost of delay mounts: estimates from the Department of City Planning peg it at around $82,000 per apartment, or over $8 million for a typical hundred-unit building.

At the heart of this inertia is the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), a 1970s-vintage statute meant to ensure that development would not pillage New York’s air, water, and green spaces. These are noble goals, especially at a time when cities are increasingly shouldering the burden of climate adaptation. But if the original SEQRA was a shield for the environment, many now argue it has become a roadblock to progress, and not just for developers. For the city’s swelling ranks of rent-stressed residents and those doubled up with relatives, each protracted review is another year without hope of a stable lease.

Under SEQRA, any housing that requires a zoning change—often the case for projects seeking to boost density or affordability—must undergo an “environmental impact review.” This process is exhaustive, and, in theory, offers a bulwark against the excesses of unchecked urban growth. Yet the Department of City Planning’s recent analysis suggests that less than 1% of projects in the reform’s targeted bracket show any material environmental impact. Most reviews, it appears, are bureaucratic theatre at best.

The knock-on effects are considerable. Developers, faced with the double whammy of time and expense, often abandon or downsize projects that might otherwise have included affordable units. The city’s ability to meet its own ambitious housing targets—500,000 new homes over the next decade—is undermined before it can begin. For those projects that do survive the vetting, the delays drive up construction costs, which are inevitably passed on in the form of higher rents.

For New Yorkers, the first-order effects are visceral: another year commuting from distant boroughs, another year riskily housed. But the second-order effects are arguably even more corrosive. The city’s failure to adequately supply new homes contributes to persistent segregation, as zoning review reinforces old boundaries. Soaring prices intensify the city’s brain drain, pushing would-be residents and skilled workers elsewhere. Ironically, a statute conceived to protect the vulnerable now buttresses the status quo.

Economically, the situation is hardly unique to New York, but it is particularly acute here. Experts have drawn comparisons to cities like San Francisco or Boston, where similarly layered review regimens have choked supply and fueled inflation in rent. According to a recent analysis by NYU Furman Center, the full regulatory gauntlet facing New York can add as much as 25% to the cost of bringing an apartment to market. In a metropolis where incomes are stagnant and demand remains buoyant, the results portend trouble.

Politically, the terrain is awkward. Governor Kathy Hochul’s modest proposal to exempt smaller housing projects from SEQRA has already triggered predictable backlash from local preservationists, who argue that any weakening of environmental scrutiny could open the door to abuses. Their fears are not unwarranted; history is littered with cautionary tales of poorly reviewed developments. But such opposition misses the crux: most urban infill, particularly in transit-rich districts, is fundamentally positive for both housing and the environment.

The environmental argument, too, is evolving. Allowing more compact housing to rise in already dense, walkable neighbourhoods is, evidence shows, among the most effective ways to reduce per capita carbon emissions. Cities like Stockholm and Paris have managed to densify and decarbonise in tandem, shattering the notion that environmental vigilance must entail fanatical opposition to all growth. New York, for its part, risks falling behind both its own climate ambitions and its rivals abroad by clinging to outdated regulatory frameworks.

Sequencing reform, and the road ahead

The core of Governor Hochul’s proposal is pragmatic rather than radical: maintain rigorous review for large or environmentally sensitive developments, but ease the path for smaller, largely benign projects. The city’s own data support this distinction. While opponents fret that reforms could unleash a torrent of ill-conceived towers, in practice, the loosened requirements would pertain chiefly to projects adding a smattering of affordable apartments above subway stops or along bus corridors.

Of course, SEQRA is not the only hurdle. Other layers of city and state regulation—everything from historic preservation rules to arcane building codes—also play a role in throttling supply and bloating costs. But as a lever, SEQRA reform offers more immediate impact than most, promising faster delivery of new housing exactly where it is most needed. It is telling that nearly every expert panel targeting New York’s affordability woes has included some version of this reform high on its wishlist.

Broader lessons are at hand. Across the United States, progressive cities are beginning to reconcile their environmental and housing priorities, often by carving out exemptions for infill development and prioritising transit-oriented construction. New York’s reform, then, would not be an outlier but rather a modest catch-up to peers with similarly acute housing shortages. The real outlier, perhaps, is the glacial pace of change in a city so proud of its dynamism.

For New York, the stakes are capital and talent as much as shelter and sustainability. Each year spent wrangling over procedural minutiae is a year in which families postpone their plans, businesses curb expansion, and the city’s famed vibrancy dims a little further. Policymakers cannot calibrate away the tradeoffs entirely, but they can avoid self-inflicted wounds.

The impulse to err on the side of caution is understandable: in a city that once bulldozed entire neighbourhoods in the name of progress, a strong review process has value. But the risk of paralysis—of letting perfect be the enemy of good—looks increasingly puny compared to the cost of chronic stasis. Thoughtful SEQRA reform would not jettison environmental safeguards; it would repurpose them for the challenges of a modern, growing, and intensely competitive city.

In the end, a nimbler approach promises gains not just for those waiting for a roof over their heads, but for anyone invested in a New York that continues to build upon, rather than just defend, its legacy. ■