{"id":136693,"date":"2026-02-17T22:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/136693\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T22:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:35:09","slug":"why-new-yorks-housing-shortage-could-cost-it-congressional-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/136693\/","title":{"rendered":"Why New York\u2019s Housing Shortage Could Cost It Congressional Seats"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next US Census likely won\u2019t be good for New York. Because of nationwide population trends, the state is projected to lose two congressional seats, and with them, two electoral votes for president, according to recent findings<\/a> from Carnegie Mellon University.<\/p>\n

The other states that are projected to lose multiple congressional seats and electoral votes are California and Illinois, according to the research. All three states consistently support Democrats at the statewide level and in presidential elections.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, two states are projected to gain multiple seats and electoral votes: Florida, and Texas. Both are set to add four seats, and both consistently support Republicans at the statewide level and for president.<\/p>\n

If these projections are accurate, the Democratic candidate for president in 2032 could win every state that Kamala Harris won in 2024, plus Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin \u2014 and still lose the election.<\/p>\n

One reason why blue states are losing ground: The red states build far more housing than they do.<\/p>\n

From 2021 to 2024, Florida and Texas issued permits for over 1.7 million new homes. California, Illinois, and New York issued fewer than 700,000 total, despite having a combined population over 15 million people larger than Florida and Texas\u2019s total.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlorida and Texas have a lot of laws that facilitate and incentivize housing production,\u201d said Paul Williams, director of the Center for Public Enterprise, a think tank.<\/p>\n

The final changes after the 2030 Census could be less dramatic than the current projections, Williams noted, since the flow of people out of blue states and into red ones has been trending down<\/a> recently, though it remains significant.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s housing shortage is driving people out of the state<\/a>, to places with cheaper options, according to research from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.<\/p>\n

Even when moving to a low-tax state like Florida, middle-income people save significantly more on their rent or mortgage than they do from lower taxes, FPI\u2019s research found.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually making it possible and affordable for people to stay in New York is existential for the Democratic Party,\u201d said Annemarie Gray, executive director of the pro-housing development group Open New York.<\/p>\n

In New York, a major reason for the lack of new housing is local zoning codes, which often heavily restrict new housing<\/a> in towns and cities, or even bar it entirely<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Are New York lawmakers concerned about this? Perhaps, but bold, paradigm-shifting ideas have been largely absent from the legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody bemoans the predicament we\u2019re in, but that\u2019s where the concern stops,\u201d said Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who chairs the chamber\u2019s housing committee.<\/p>\n

As the legislature stalls, Governor Kathy Hochul is taking on a project that could boost housing statewide: relaxing New York\u2019s state\u2019s environmental review law. As it stands, the law can require developers to spend years seeking approval<\/a> for even minor new projects, and leaves them open to lawsuits by NIMBY communities seeking to derail new housing altogether.<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s proposed change would allow small and medium-sized developments to skip the state environmental review process. This wouldn\u2019t turn building into a free-for-all \u2014 developers would still have to follow all relevant environmental regulations and protections in New York law.<\/p>\n

Outside New York City, the exception would only apply if the buildings are located on sites that have already been developed \u2014 heading off concerns that it would allow open space to be paved over for new housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a community says yes, the state is going to step out of the way and let them go forward and build,\u201d Hochul said at an event Tuesday. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was also in attendance and praised Hochul for her \u201ctaking the action necessary to speed up the housing process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a question from New York Focus, Hochul described the proposal as just a first step towards boosting housing statewide: \u201cIf we fix this one aspect, we can get that much further. It is not the end game at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

For much of her tenure, Governor Hochul has touted pro-housing bona fides. In 2024, she and the legislature reached a deal<\/a> to boost housing construction that she called \u201ctransformative\u201d and \u201ccomprehensive.\u201d But the deal\u2019s tax breaks and zoning changes were mostly focused on New York City, and didn\u2019t have a major impact in the rest of the state.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Hochul proposed a more far-reaching plan that would have required all areas of the state to build new housing, but it was defeated by fierce opposition from the legislature<\/a>, especially among representatives of suburban areas.<\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s suburbs have been especially resistant to allowing new housing. The four suburban counties surrounding New York City \u2014 Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester \u2014 have issued just five new housing permits per 1,000 residents so far this decade.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Even a \u201cregion-wide consensus\u201d that more housing is needed on Long Island, particularly more affordable housing, hasn\u2019t shifted this trend, said Lawrence Levy, dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Long Island\u2019s Hofstra University.<\/p>\n

Since housing policy is managed town by town rather than regionally, many localities \u201cbecome villages of no,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

In Huntington, Long Island, for example, the town board ditched a 2023 proposal<\/a> to allow more basement apartments after massive opposition at a public meeting, including one resident who expressed fear of \u201cmigrants, pedophiles, or criminals\u201d moving into the apartments, and another who urged the board not to change the \u201ccomplexion of this beautiful community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Brian Kavanagh, who chairs the chamber\u2019s housing committee, said that he thinks state lawmakers should \u201cbe stepping in and putting more pressure on localities to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not a sure bet that they will, he acknowledged. \u201cI don\u2019t want to make some grand prediction about what will happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To become law, Hochul\u2019s plan has to pass the legislature, which is not a given. Rosenthal, the assembly housing chair, said she\u2019s still making up her mind, and is concerned about unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly don\u2019t want that in the haste to facilitate more housing, we lose environmental protections,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In New York City, experts say it\u2019s likely there will be a boost in home-building from former Mayor Eric Adams\u2019s signature City of Yes housing plan, which was enacted in December 2024. His administration estimated that the zoning changes in the plan will allow for the building of 80,000 new units in New York City over the next decade.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani appears to be interested in continuing that work. He has kept Adams\u2019 housing staffers in his administration, and campaigned on a platform of using city funds to build 200,000 new units of affordable housing over the next decade.<\/p>\n

Sharing a podium with Hochul on Tuesday, Mamdani sounded hopeful that the city and state can put an end to the high housing costs that drive New Yorkers out of the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverywhere you look in this city, there is proof of what a city that is willing to build can deliver,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd yet for too long, we have not extended that same limitless ambition to the kind of building that matters most to New Yorkers: the housing they need to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Adams\u2019s and Mamdani\u2019s combined efforts, if they came to fruition, would still fill less than half of the 600,000-home gap that opened up over the past four years between Florida and New York.<\/p>\n

This story first appeared in the New York Focus. Read the original here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The next US Census likely won\u2019t be good for New York. Because of nationwide population trends, the state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-136693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}