The program will charge companies for carbon pollution and introduce a novel rebate initiative that promises to distribute $1 billion to New Yorkers. But environmentalists say its success will rest on how exactly the state designs the program, to ensure it doesn’t allow companies to essentially pay to pollute without meaningfully lowering emissions.
“The notion of the law as something outside of politics has surely been put to rest by the recent Supreme Court confirmation processes and the right-wing decisions of that Court. Most Americans now agree: the nation’s highest court is in fact a political body.”
Thursday night, the same day Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a preliminary budget focused on “fiscal discipline” and two days after Gov. Kathy Hochul laid out her priorities for the year ahead in her State of the State speech, 70,525 people slept in a New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter.
“New York finally has a big, bold, and brave plan to really make the state affordable. It will attack the lack of housing supply, the inequitable distribution of housing, and the reticence of some local leaders to do their part.”
“As Gov. Kathy Hochul is set to deliver the speech that could define her first full term, she has an opportunity to set a path of real progress on housing. But she will have to break the patterns of past leadership—and her own first year in office.”
Advocates say the findings add new urgency to the state’s efforts to transition its energy sources away from fossil fuels, and as environmental groups renew calls for state lawmakers to pass legislation that would ban gas hookups in new construction statewide.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
As 2022 comes to a close, City Limits looks back at images that defined some of New York City’s biggest news stories and most pressing policy issues.
It’s been an eventful year in New York City housing. Mayor Eric Adams launched a new plan for housing production and a controversial approach to street homelessness. At the same time, the city’s homeless shelter population reached historic highs this year, fueled in part by an increase in migrants from the southern border and by soaring rent costs, including the biggest price hike for rent-stabilized apartments in nearly a decade.
Over half of New York City food stamp applicants are forced to wait for their benefits to arrive as staff at the understaffed Human Resources Administration fail to keep pace with demand. The state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has declined to issue a waiver that would relieve the backlog.
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