Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Holds Roundtable With Local Leaders to Highlight Let Them Build Agenda as Statewide Support Continues to Grow

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul held a roundtable with leaders from across the state to highlight her "Let Them Build" agenda, a series of landmark reforms to speed up housing and infrastructure development and lower costs as part of her 2026 State of the State. This initiative will spur a series of common sense reforms to New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and executive actions to expedite critical categories of projects that have been consistently found to not have significant environmental impacts, but for too long have been caught up in red tape and subject to lengthy delays. Together, these actions will make it easier to build the housing and infrastructure that localities want and that New Yorkers need.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Governor Hochul: Let them build, alright. Do we have to - you want to do what we did in New Rochelle? We'll talk about that, it's extraordinary. But I want to, first of all, RuthAnne Visnauskas is on her way, probably trapped in the - oh, there she is, the grand entrance. If you want, you can use snow as an excuse, because that's pretty legit today, as much as we don't like it to be. But I want to acknowledge RuthAnne Visnauskas, who's been an incredible leader in driving forth our agenda and building more housing and trying to find ways we can break down the barriers, which is what today's conversation's all about. So I commend you and your entire team.

Mayor Ramos-Herbert, the Mayor of New Rochelle, is going to be one of our moderators here to get the conversation going about the success that she has had, and I was so impressed when I went to visit there a couple weeks ago, and unbelievable progress. And the beautiful takeaway from that is the fact that your rents are going down because of building so much, so you'll be able to talk about that. But Mayor Steve Noble, I've spent a lot of time in your wonderful community as well. Just went to a nice wine bar there a couple weeks ago. Just doing my best to support the local economy, it's my job as well, but we had a great time. And also County Executive Dan McCoy, our hometown county executive, and among the electeds here, but all the stakeholders who'll be introduced. Carlina, we've known each other for a long time from your days in elected office, but you'll be introduced as you give your comments today to help everyone understand what this is all about.

We don't do this lightly, and we do this because the people here are some of the greatest champions we have in terms of building more housing and development. And we're all united around a basic philosophy that when a community says yes to projects, whether it's new housing, whether it's clean energy, child care facilities, infrastructure, and government is in the way, that dynamic has been failing us for a long time. So it's now time to get government out of the way and let them build. It's that basic, and we've made remarkable progress. You just know me, I'm never one to let rest on our laurels. We always have to push harder, and we took on some entrenched interests and won and we passed the most significant housing deal in the State of New York in over 50 years, and we funded shovel-ready projects and turned vacant buildings into homes, and, which I'm really proud of, is recruiting over 400 communities, and the number still grows - communities that have committed to be Pro-Housing Communities. And what that means is that they'll adhere to certain growth targets, with the support of their Legislature or their City Councils or Town Boards, and as a result they're eligible for, I think upwards of $750 million in money to help their community continue to grow. So we'll keep that going, but I also want to be very clear when we're talking about seeker reform, we are not talking about rolling back environmental protections.

We're not saying anything goes. What we're simply saying is that when a community, the elected leaders, are ready to go forward with a project, after all the permits have been secured and the reviews on the front end, and they've determined that there should be, there's no significant environmental risk, that they should not now get trapped in bureaucracy, which can lead to upwards of two years of additional review mandated by the State. And sometimes, developers would just say, it's just not worth it, or people just decide on NIMBYism, which is rather rampant in our state. I saw this, I've been trying to stop a project behind City Hall near where I live in Buffalo. For decades, they were - RuthAnne, you know this issue, right? What were those projects called behind City Hall there?

RuthAnne Visnauskas, Division of Homes and Community Renewal : Oh gosh, the Marine - near Marine Drive?

Governor Hochul: Close to there, but they were decrepit, they were abandoned. They were just horrible and we wanted to demolish them and put up beautiful new housing, which we ultimately achieved, but there was litigation in court because preservations were saying we didn't follow the law and we need to protect those. I was like, you did not want to protect such an eyesore. It was horrible. But we got it done, if you go back and see that neighborhood, because we persevered, but it shouldn't have been that hard. So many more projects could have been done in the meantime.

We're ready to move ahead when the community wants to move ahead. Again, this is not telling us a community what to do. It is a community telling us they're ready to move forward - that we'll require, we'll talk to our teams and we'll figure out the path under the law and propose law changes, we will get out of the way. And I just think that the era of half measures and a little bit here, a little bit there, it is just not working. That is the reason why people who want to stay in New York, many families and young people who want to build their lives here, they just can't find a home that they can afford. And so, they're having to make decisions, not what they imagined would happen, or young families that want to have their kids grow up near grandparents, which was important to me, but we need to make sure that we can support this development now so our kids and grandkids can continue to call New York home.

So it's much more than just updating an outdated law. It's really about who we are as New Yorkers. Do we have the courage, the audacity, the ambition to do what others before us have not done? And that is why I am sitting here leading the charge with allies like all of you around this table.

And so we've done great things during extraordinary - breaking through extraordinary challenges, but we've always dreamed bigger and this is what today's all about. So it's that unstoppable mentality. And I will also, just one more time, say that my belief that if you build more, we have more supply, naturally it'll suppress prices from going up. Sometimes they stabilize and in some communities they actually go down. And that is what our objective is here. So let's show the entire state what we're capable of and let them build.

And with that, let me let our mayor from New Rochelle talk about your experience, but also, kick off the roundtable as we hear from leaders of counties and other communities and advocates.

Contact the Governor's Press Office