State Budget Debrief
Big takeaways from New York's 2024 state budget process
Hi All,
Three weeks after the deadline, we have a state budget! While not as sexy as hush-money payments to porn stars or as surprising as legislative action in Washington, the state budget is more likely to affect you via salient (if incremental) changes to life in New York.
🏠 Housing: A Little More Building, A Little More Affordability
The “baby grand bargain” we predicted did indeed come to pass. New York will get new tax subsidies to promote affordable housing development and office-to-residential conversion and a new set of tenant protections giving many (but far from all) market-rate renters protections against very big rent increases.
The best news in the package was the removal of the cap on residential building density which made apartment buildings like the ones we love most in New York illegal to construct (leading to the super-skinny supertalls that irk everyone). Demands for this change from folks like us were crucial to making it happen: we’ve earned a victory lap. Still, we didn't get requirements that the city or state address our drastic shortage of homes—the underlying cause of our crisis. The work goes on!
🚗 Streets: (Hopefully) Slower Cars, (Some) Faster Buses
In 2013, 12-year-old New Yorker Sammy Cohen-Eckstein was killed by a van while playing soccer on his Park Slope street. Over a decade—and 100 more kids killed by cars—later, the legislature finally passed Sammy’s Law, giving the city permission to reduce our speed limit from 25 to 20 miles per hour (with exceptions for major thoroughfares in outer boroughs). Many lives will be saved because of this slowdown.
A pilot of free bus service is ending, but over $12 million is going to increase service frequency on bus routes—important, but not as much as would be ideal, to strengthen the bus system ahead of congestion pricing’s start in June. Congestion pricing and Sammy’s Law both require being able to toll and ticket drivers, but the trend of offenders illegally covering their license plates is rampant. The budget included some small(but still lax) punishments for this antisocial behavior.
🌱 Climate: A Mixed Bag on Decarbonization
The biggest climate policy proposed in the budget—the NY HEAT Act—didn’t make it through the Assembly, again. The proposal would end requirements and subsidies to expand gas service to consumers, directly undermining our shift away from fossil fuels.
On the other hand, the budget does include steps to streamline grid electrification, critical to getting renewable energy to end users.
We’re taking small steps towards a more affordable, vibrant, sustainable future; it would be better if the legislature were enacting giant leaps.
Still, these steps are worth celebrating, especially because this progress is unlocked only when folks like us come together to demand it. Let’s keep fighting to move New York forward!
Ryder