Hochul's affordable housing plan may expand in state budget talks

ALBANY — A proposal to build affordable housing statewide may include tenant protections as closed-door negotiations slowly drive Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders toward a state budget agreement that was due more than two weeks ago, according to sources.

The State Legislature returns to Albany on Monday in what is the final day of the second “budget extender” adopted by the leaders to keep state government running. The 2022-23 budget expired March 31. Hochul and the legislature could agree to a third budget extender on Monday or, if a budget deal is struck, to begin to complete the roughly 35 hours of crafting of bills and then debate in the Senate and Assembly.

Hochul said Friday that she met with Senate and Assembly leaders and is “looking to wrap this up in the not-too-distant future.”

The only person who has dealt with the opaque budget process as both a legislative leader and governor in the last 25 years — former Gov. David Paterson — said he sees subtle indications of progress. He also knows from experience that the constitutional power of governors since the 1930s means that the talks won’t linger much longer and that continued gridlock could force the legislature to accept Hochul's proposals as she sees fit.

“Now that it’s after April 1, legislative leaders are at the whim of the governor,” said Paterson, who in 2010 vetoed 6,681 budget items from the legislature. “The governor can say, ‘You have one day, or you can shut down the government.’ ”

Progress, however, is being reported on two of the toughest policy issues in the budget.

Legislative leaders are approaching agreement with Hochul on her proposal to drop the requirement that judges use the “least-restrictive” means — bail or release — to assure a suspect accused of a nonviolent felony returns for trial, according to legislative sources. Legislators have said they are supportive of a change that would remove the “least-restrictive” standard only for the most serious cases.

“I think we’re very close to a general agreement,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) said Tuesday. “What the governor is trying to do, we certainly don’t mind doing — that a judge have discretion … and judicial accountability is part of that.”

Another criminal justice matter in the mix is the timetable for prosecutors to turn over evidence to defense lawyers in preparation for a trial.

In 2019, so-called discovery reforms placed stricter limits on how soon prosecutors must turn over evidence and file a certificate saying they’ve produced everything available. Now, district attorneys are pushing back, seeking a provision to also put a burden on defense lawyers by establishing a time limit to file a legal claim challenging a prosecutor’s assertion that all the evidence has been produced. Thirty-five days is one idea that’s been floated, but sources said that could be changed.

Sources have said prosecutors want the change so defense attorneys can’t stall and force the case to run into problems meeting speedy-trial requirements. But the Legal Aid Society and others said it would gut the 2019 reform and return to the days when prosecutors could blind-side defendants with last-second evidence.

Negotiations last week also turned to Hochul’s proposed “housing compact” to make housing more affordable statewide by helping to create 800,000 new housing units over the next decade, according to Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx).

Legislators said their leaders have moved away from a flat rejection of Hochul’s provision that would allow a state board to overrule local zoning officials who reject sound housing projects. Last week, legislative leaders sought to add several incentives to local governments to approve more housing developments and to provide more input by local officials before a state board could try to overrule local zoning.

Stewart-Cousins said talks last week also involved adding some of the legislature’s housing proposals to Hochul’s compact.

“Tenant protection is as important as building new units,” Stewart-Cousins said. “It’s a very broad conversation.”

Among the Senate’s housing priorities are more than doubling the $250 million Hochul proposed to give local governments to help pay for the infrastructure required for new housing; providing communities more time to meet Hochul’s targets for housing growth; adding tenant protections, including requiring “good cause” for evictions; raising the fund for legal representation for evictions outside New York City by $5 million to $40 million, and adding $389 million to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program for a total of $639 million.

The Assembly’s housing priorities include: $625 million to help communities statewide pay for infrastructure and other costs to expand housing; $1.5 billion to help lower-income tenants and homeowners afford their rent and mortgages; creating a voucher program to provide rental assistance to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, and a program to help lower-income people and racial minorities buy homes.

Paterson said that if a late budget extends much longer or if a stalemate happens, the legislature will be at greater risk of feeling the power of a governor to impose a budget. Hochul hasn’t made the threat, but Heastie and Stewart-Cousins said legislators know the power is there.

“To use a ‘Star Trek’ reference, I’m not putting up the yellow alert yet,” Heastie said.

“It’s certainly something we want to avoid,” Stewart-Cousins said. “It’s not a worry. It is a reality.”

Paterson said the lack of a threat to impose her budget is part of Hochul’s broader strategy.

“She’s trying to keep the peace,” Paterson said. “They are not agreeing, but they are cooperating. … I wouldn’t see the necessity for that kind of thing unless the budget was prohibitively long — like the deadline passed by two or three months — and it’s clear no one is cooperating.”

“But I hope it’s not a prelude to a series of these late budgets,” Paterson said.

There are risks for a governor to imposing a budget on the legislature.

“Legislative leaders have long memories,” Paterson said. He said that if Hochul went that route, she would likely incur the wrath of the legislature well beyond the budget fight.

The current Senate and Assembly, now each controlled by fellow Democrats in supermajorities, could override her vetoes, block her legislative proposals, or try to use new legislation to undermine the policy gains she included in the budget she imposed.

Paterson said he made a “huge mistake” in the power politics of Albany, one that Hochul has so far avoided.

“I decided that because of the tremendous debt the state was running up and we were in a recession, to bring the legislature back in August, in an election year,” Paterson said.

“But when I made the speech to say they were coming back, I was scolded,” Paterson said. “It didn’t take two months before I asked them to do something and they were ornery. I actually started a fight where there wasn’t one.”

With Yancey Roy

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.