AIANY Testifies at the New York State Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Housing

Today, AIA New York traveled to Albany for the New York State Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Housing. We testified in support of tools for affordable housing development and strategies to promote low-carbon construction, with a focus on adaptive reuse and circularity. In an environment with high construction costs, stringent codes and regulations, and onerous permitting processes, we need strategic investment and reforms to unlock development opportunities, which enables projects to pencil out. Smart policy, design leadership, and financial tools can help affordable housing and low-carbon construction projects succeed. AIANY expressed support for the following:

• SEQRA - Proposed reforms to modernize the State Environmental Quality Review Act in Governor Hochul's FY27 Executive Budget Proposal, aimed at cutting red tape and reducing administrative burdens while making it easier to strengthen environmental initiatives and build critical projects, lowering the cost of housing and utilities

• J-51 Tax Incentive - Financial tool to support renovations and repairs to preserve affordable housing, detailed in Governor Hochul's FY27 Executive Budget Proposal

• Financial Tools for Embodied Carbon (A6566/S7648) - Establishes a sales tax exemption for low-carbon construction materials and a grant program for concrete manufacturers to develop environmental product declarations

• Embodied Carbon in Building Code (A8456/S7998) - Establishes a long-term strategy for reducing embodied carbon in all public and private building projects by setting three compliance pathways for reducing embodied carbon in the Building Code: adaptive reuse, material carbon caps, and whole building life cycle assessments

• Eligible Criteria Expansion for C-PACE (A5404/S1335) - Expands the allowable uses of C-PACE financings to cover low-carbon intensity building component improvement

• Deconstruction Ordinance (A8637/S8168) - Incentivizes localities to implement deconstruction ordinances to promote deconstruction and reuse instead of demolition by providing grant funding and technical support if local ordinance is adopted

• Mass Timber Affordable Housing Incentives (A9255/S8918) - Establishes a pilot program for mass timber construction for affordable housing and creates tax incentives for adopting mass timber design into affordable housing

Read our full testimony.