Unlock New York\u2019s Future Now Has 39 Member Orgs from Across the State <\/p>\n
Albany, NY – Unlock New York\u2019s Future today announced the addition of five new organizations to the statewide coalition urging the New York State Legislature to modernize the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) as part of the FY 2026\u201327 budget. This brings the number of organizations to 39. The newly joining members are: <\/p>\n
Association for a Better Long Island <\/p>\n
Riders Alliance <\/p>\n
Housing Rights Initiative <\/p>\n
Welcome Home Westchester<\/p>\n
Long Island Homeless Continuum of Care Legislative Committee<\/p>\n
Annemarie Gray, Executive Director of Open New York: \u200b\u201cUnlock New York\u2019s future is growing because these organizations from all over New York know that if we want to lower costs, reduce emissions, improve transit, and increase housing, we need to modernize SEQRA. Whether you are in Westchester, Long Island, New York City, the Capitol Region, Western New York, or the North Country, New Yorkers across the state know that this reform will accelerate climate action, expand economic opportunity, and deliver real benefits to families in every region of the state. Our coalition is only growing, and we look forward to working with our partners in the state legislature to make this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kate Slevin, Executive Vice President of Regional Plan Association:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe growing momentum behind Unlock New York\u2019s Future reflects a clear and shared understanding across the state: if we are serious about lowering housing costs, cutting emissions, and expanding economic opportunity, we must modernize SEQRA.<\/p>\n
Modernizing SEQRA is about aligning environmental review with today\u2019s urgent needs\u2013 housing supply, resilient infrastructure, and smart, transit-oriented growth. Done right, this reform will help the New York metro region be affordable for families while fighting sprawl. We look forward to working with our coalition partners to help make this a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Strober, Executive Director, Association for a Better Long Island, said, \u200b\u201cThis is a significant update for the New York economic development community. One of the biggest hurdles that economic development projects face is unpredictable timelines and prohibitive soft costs for small to mid-sized projects. These reforms, proposed by Governor Hochul, will help spur economic development, create housing, and help make New York more affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coalition, a broad group of housing, environmental, transit, community development, business, and civic organizations, is calling for SEQRA reforms that reduce unnecessary procedural delays while preserving strong environmental protections, support attainable housing, speed clean\u2011energy and transit projects, and prevent hold-ups that delay community priorities.<\/p>\n
SEQRA, a law written over 50\u00a0years ago, is now a bottleneck that delays and blocks the housing, clean\u2011energy, transit, and infrastructure projects New Yorkers need. In fact, its broad rules let a single opponent tie projects up in court for years, driving up costs, rents, and utility bills while slowing climate action. Although intended to protect the environment, SEQRA today often prevents building rooftop solar, energy\u2011efficient housing near transit, rail modernization, and critical road, bridge, and school repairs, outsized legal hurdles that benefit a few wealthy opponents at the expense of communities.<\/p>\n
SEQRA reform is very popular, according to recent polling: <\/p>\n
New Yorkers overwhelmingly support reforming SEQRA. Voters view SEQRA reform as critical to addressing the affordability crisis. They believe that too much red tape is holding New York back from making the improvements the state needs, including building affordable housing, upgrading roads and bridges, and getting clean energy projects off the ground to lower their utility bills.<\/p>\n
SEQRA reform will address all of the top issues voters believe New York is facing. New York voters say that the top issues facing the state are increasing utility bills (78% major problem), the housing affordability crisis (72%), too much bureaucracy and red tape (62%), and aging infrastructure like roads, bridges, and highways (62%). All of these can be addressed by reforming SEQRA\u2019s outdated rules and mandates.<\/p>\n
Majorities want to make it easier to build several types of projects, all of which can be accomplished with SEQRA reform. Affordable housing, upgrades to roads and bridges, public transit and commuter rail upgrades, and clean energy infrastructure are the top examples of projects voters across New York say should be easier to build.<\/p>\n
Support for SEQRA reform transcends partisan and geographical lines. When voters are given a short description of SEQRA reform, more than three in five support it. Support is high up and downstate and across partisan lines, with nearly three-quarters of voters in New York City supportive and majorities supportive in the suburbs and upstate.<\/p>\n
Both Governor Hochul and state legislators stand to benefit from supporting SEQRA reform. Fifty-seven percent of voters say they would be more favorable to the Governor if she signed SEQRA reform into law, including over half of independents. And majorities say they would be more likely to vote for a state legislator who supports SEQRA reform.<\/p>\n
Unlock New York\u2019s Future had announced previously: <\/p>\n
American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY)<\/p>\n
Association for a Better Long Island<\/p>\n
The Building & Realty Institute of the Hudson Valley<\/p>\n
Catskill Center for Conservation and Development<\/p>\n
Climate Changemakers Brooklyn<\/p>\n
CNY Fair Housing<\/p>\n
Citizens Budget Commission<\/p>\n
Citizens Housing & Planning Council<\/p>\n
Community Preservation Corporation<\/p>\n
Effective Transit Alliance<\/p>\n
Enterprise Community Partners<\/p>\n
Habitat for Humanity NYC and Westchester County<\/p>\n
Habitat for Humanity of New York State (Habitat for Humanity NYS)<\/p>\n
Hudson River Housing<\/p>\n
Lantern Organization<\/p>\n
Leadership Now Project<\/p>\n
Long Island Association<\/p>\n
Long Island Builders Institute<\/p>\n
Long Island Housing Coalition<\/p>\n
Long Island Housing Services, Inc.<\/p>\n
New York Building Congress<\/p>\n
New York Housing Conference<\/p>\n
New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH)<\/p>\n
New York State Builders Association<\/p>\n
Open New York<\/p>\n
Partnership for New York City<\/p>\n
Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC)<\/p>\n
Queens Economic Development Corporation<\/p>\n
Regional Plan Association<\/p>\n
Responsive Government Action<\/p>\n
Riders Alliance <\/p>\n
True North Realty Associates, LLC<\/p>\n
Westchester County Association<\/p>\n
Westhab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock New York\u2019s Future Now Has 39 Member Orgs from Across the State Albany, NY – Unlock New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2222,4762,3242,15825,2907,15826,1066,9,24,55,54,56,13400,1413,15824,4838,608,9516],"class_list":{"0":"post-137922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-connecticut","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-governance","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-neighborhood-planning","14":"tag-new-jersey","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","18":"tag-new-york-city-news","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-planning","21":"tag-policy","22":"tag-rpa","23":"tag-sustainability","24":"tag-transportation","25":"tag-urban-planning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137922","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=137922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}