Officials decry zoning change

Local issues should be decided locally.”

Chris Carini, Town of Hempstead Councilman

Town of Hempstead and Nassau County officials — and some South Shore residents — are up in arms over a zoning proposal in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2022-23 state budget.

Dozens of elected officials gathered outside an East Meadow home on Feb. 3 to voice their opposition to “Section AA” of the proposed spending plan, which would effectively eliminate single-family zoning across the state, allowing single-family homes to be turned into “accessory dwelling units” or apartments by converting basements, garages and attics into separate dwellings.

At the news conference, officials detailed what they saw as the potentially negative impacts of the proposal: an increase in traffic, a strain on resources and infrastructure, and overcrowding in public schools.

“It’s an attack on the suburbs — it’s an attack on the suburban way of living,” County Executive Bruce Blakeman said.            “. . . This is a power grab by New York City politicians, and we’re not going to take it.”

Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin said that the provision was “sneaky” and  “a true attack on suburbia.” “The governor is attempting to basically mandatorily require anybody who wants it to put an accessory unit on their house,” Clavin said. “. . . We are not standing for it.”

The officials called on residents to contact Hochul’s office and make their objections clear. A Feb. 4 letter to the governor signed by the Hempstead Town Board requested that she remove the provision from the spending plan.

“We do not need New York State meddling in the local zoning affairs of the Town of Hempstead, or any community within Nassau County,” the letter read. “Our town Building Department, Board of Appeals and Town Board — working with other municipal departments — have enforced local building codes and zoning laws for generations.”

County Legislator Tom McKevitt said that Hochul’s proposal would account for 10 percent of the $216 billion spending plan.

“It would require any single-family home in the state of New York to be allowed to either put an apartment or even build a second home on the property as of right,” McKevitt said. “… It says that you can’t enforce open-space requirements” that the land be left in its original state.

“[Open space] is the reason that people leave the city to come here for a great place for their kids to grow up,” he added. “This destroys it entirely.”

The legislation basically takes away the “home rule” authority of local governments, so they cannot determine zoning based on the character of the community and the wishes of those in their jurisdiction.

“It is yet another attack on suburbia,” County Legislator Steve Rhoads said. “Look at this proposal being snuck into the state budget, which makes it very difficult to be able to defeat it, because in order to defeat it — unless it’s removed from the budget — you would have to vote against the entire budget.”

Town Councilman Chris Carini wrote in a statement to the Herald, “The Governor and Albany leadership are hiding this legislation in the budget, just like what was done with bail reform. These proposals are nothing short of a smash and grab to gain control of local zoning laws and [they] will destroy our suburban way of life.

“We must not allow the Governor to force her will on our local zoning,” Carini added. “Local issues should be decided locally.”

Lawrence Levy, dean of Hofstra’s National Center for Suburban Studies, said the provision could help solve the region’s affordable-housing crisis. “It’s easy to understand why the folks running the county, towns and villages don’t want Albany telling them what to do,” Levy said, “but the potential law reflects the frustration [of] advocates for more and better affordable housing. This could be one of the solutions to the lack of affordable places to live, and an opportunity for homeowners to get a little more revenue to defray the high cost of property taxes.”

Others also disagreed with the politicians’ push against the provision. Lisa Tyson, director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, said in a statement that Blakeman and the rest of the officials who opposed the proposal are “dragging Long Island back to the 1950s.”

“They want to keep Long Island wealthy and white, at the expense of everyone else,” Tyson said. “Everyone knows there is an affordable rental housing crisis on Long Island, and Blakeman and his right-wing colleagues are trying to make it worse.”

If the budget is approved by the State Legislature, the provision would take effect April 1.