Earlier on Jan 28th, Governor Kathy Hochul announced new investments of more than $100 million for projects located in certified Pro-Housing Communities, part of a total $123 million allocated as part of the latest round of the State’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Governor Hochul’s Pro-Housing Communities initiative allocates up to $650 million each year in discretionary funds for communities that pledge to modestly increase their housing supply; to date, 273 communities across New York have been certified as Pro-Housing Communities. This year, Governor Hochul is proposing an additional $110 million in funding to cover infrastructure and planning costs for Pro-Housing Communities.

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:

Good morning, so great to see all of you. Wonderful to be back here at Schenectady Community College. I want to acknowledge our host, Dr. Steady Moono, and I want to thank him for welcoming me back once again. This is not my first visit, this is an important institution, I want to thank him. So anybody associated with our Schenectady Community College, let's give yourselves a round of applause.

I also want to acknowledge a great friend of mine, a long serving mayor of 14 years of the great City of Schenectady, Mayor Gary McCarthy. Assemblymember Angelo Santabarbara, we've worked together for many years as well. I want to thank you for your participation in today's event. Also, members of my dream team. I have Hope Knight, the President CEO of Empire State Development. And the woman who makes all the housing happen, RuthAnne Visnauskas, I want to thank her for being the Commissioner of Housing Community Renewal.

You know, for too long, New York has faced a real challenge that touches every single family, every community, every corner of our state. And that is the rising cost of housing. We've seen so many people forced out of their communities, even where they grew up. You grow up, you have your own family, you want to go back to maybe the same neighborhood, the same schools that you had a chance to grow up in, and somehow the world is different.

And I particularly think of our millennials, who entered the workforce, graduated from college at a time when there was a recession, they weren't hiring, and too many ended up spending years they should have been liberated having to come back home to live in their parents basement. And for the parents, it wasn't the best time of your lives either. I understand that. But now, these young people have been saving and they want to have that dream of home ownership, finally get out of the apartment. And it's just too hard. And it's not their fault. It's not their fault because so many of our communities didn't have the ambition or the drive to break through the barriers, and I'll tell you right now, there are countless barriers.

I served in local government, like your mayor, for 14 years. I know how a community can stop growth, if they want to. But I also know how they can unleash it, and liberate it, and give hope to communities that want to expand and welcome others, but also welcome – have the firefighters, and the teachers, and the police officers, and the nurses, and doctors who serve a community to be able to afford to live in it and have housing available to them.

And our seniors who invested their entire lives in the community. Maybe they had a little bit of a bigger house. And now they want to stay close to the grandkids and have a little smaller place, but the housing stock is just not there for them. This is a crisis on steroids and we've seen it. And this is another reason why people have sometimes had to leave our state because there's other places – that again, had the ambition to build more housing. And I want to make sure that no one has to leave a neighborhood, no one has to leave our state ever again because we didn't have what it took to break through.

Past leaders have tried. They've talked about it. But it also takes some political courage. And I want to thank our legislature for working with me last year as we unveiled the most comprehensive, forward-thinking housing plan since the 1960s. That's a big deal.

So, we began what I call the Pro-Housing Communities idea, right? Again, I thank RuthAnne and her team at HCR for the brilliance of this. And the idea is — we had a plan a couple years ago that would say, “Build, build, build.”

People said, “We'll do it, but you have to give us some carrots. We don't really like the sticks.”

“Okay, I'll give you carrots,” I gave you a lot of carrots. I gave you $650 million worth of carrots, okay? That's a lot of carrots.

So, other than rabbits, these communities wanted carrots. So, we did it. We had an executive order. We said, “We'll reward the communities that say, ‘we're willing to step up and make more housing possible in all places.’”

And we're not even talking about one kind of housing. We didn't say it had to be low-income housing, we didn't have to say all affordable housing, just build more housing stock so there’s a place that others coming out of their apartments can go to — they have that first little starter home — that they can go somewhere else. Just keep building and we would reward those communities. And we had a simple idea. For communities that are willing to be designated as Pro-Housing — and we have some criteria, and it's not that hard — we said, “We'll reward you.”

Now, it was interesting. Last year, we had 20 communities step up out of the hundreds and hundreds we have. I said, “Okay, I just put $650 million on the table. Those 20 communities are going to really enjoy that money. Okay?” All of a sudden, we got a lot more of, “Me too, me too, I want to do this too.”

So, we're very proud of how this program is unfolding, but that was a voluntary program and this past year in our Budget we made it, basically saying, this is a prerequisite to getting this pot of funding through the REDCs. So, that's what we're doing, and we've been able to allocate lots and lots of money, and we want to announce, as we announced this last year as part of this housing deal, that this is the first time we've been able to do this. I wanted to strengthen this and make sure we had this funding available

So today, we have approaching 300 communities, more than the 20 we had. And I want to thank them and congratulate them. They've already been certified, we have even more in the pipeline. And again, this goes back to your city council, your town board, there is a declaration of your principles. And it talks about some growth targets and we want to make sure we can help you get there as well. So, 270 certified now, approaching 300, are saying that we are willing to do this for our state and for our communities.

I just want to highlight one place, Columbia County, where housing prices have skyrocketed since the pandemic. We have parts of our state that were undiscovered, except by local residents, until the pandemic when a lot of people fled New York City and they came up the Hudson Valley, they came along these Erie Canal communities. So, what happened was, that just drove up demand for housing, and people could charge more, and that just priced so many families out of existence. And so, we wanted to make sure that we have done everything we can, and what we've done is include them, and I want to thank them for stepping up, because they've now demonstrated the commitment that it takes to do exactly what we're talking about. So, I wanted to have the State do our part as well. What we have is through the Regional Councils – we've awarded more than $320 million dollars for projects – and 23 municipalities within Columbia County have decided to do it.

This [announcement] supports $100 million dollars — $100 million dollars for our Pro-Housing Communities. That's a lot of money that's been allocated now.

And I want to announce some of those projects today. What we've done is combine money from the Downtown Revitalization program, which I love, the New York Forward program, the Mid-Hudson Momentum programs, and we're going to be announcing an additional $250 million worth of projects going to those communities that have stood up and said, “I will do this.” And so, I want to talk about what this actually means.

We are talking about creating more amenities. You know, when you build more housing, you need more green space. You need more parks. You might need some more infrastructure. You might need some roads. You might need some more sewers. All this goes with growth. We understand that. So we're not saying grow without providing that lifeline of support, we're going to give you that support.

And also making sure that we're investing money, like right here in Schenectady, the Community Action Program, what they're taking is a vacant lot and turning it into a neighborhood hub with housing that's affordable and child care. That's the power of this program.

We're not telling you how to do this. We're saying, you bring us your vision, and we'll make it happen. In Utica, we're investing $3 million dollars in the Thrive Corn Hill project, turning two vacant lots into a vibrant community, impact community. It'll have a gym. It'll have a grocery store, and of course, it'll have housing. That's what I'm talking about. For a smaller community, this is everything. This can take blight and turn it into something that is magnificent. So we're very, very excited about this.

The City of Poughkeepsie is receiving $1.6 million for their partnership with Habitat for Humanity for an innovative housing program. They're going to use modular construction. And modular housing – I think about this, or I think about people who live in trailer parks. My mom and dad used to live in a trailer park. Those trailers are still there, and they are just I wanted to say no one would want to live there today. They're very much substandard. They look dangerous. You know, the roofs collapsed during a snowstorm. I had to rescue a cat one time, true story, a couple years ago. So, this is not worth talking about.

We're talking about beautiful modular housing and you don't even know it's modular. It fits right in with the neighborhood and you can do it so much faster. In Poughkeepsie, they're going to build over 50 new homes like this and create opportunities for seniors and others. And also, this is so important to me, adding child care as well. This is what a genuine community does. They talk about who they want to attract and how they're going to support them.

In the Village of Dryden, we're helping transform an historic Main Street building to restore its character and new life. We have so many charming buildings. Right here in Schenectady, my gosh, you have such a bounty of beautiful, historic buildings. But over time, they get a little worn down, the facades get worn, and people can't invest the money into them. They start to telegraph a community in decline. So those are the buildings you target. Because they have a story, they have character, they add charm to our downtowns.

And this is exactly what I did in my small downtown at a time when so many businesses were closing, the jobs were leaving town, it was a tough economic time, but you never want those buildings to lose their luster because the ones that have been there for 100, 150 years, you want them there for the next century as well, so you invest in them and that's what they're doing in Dryden.

On Long Island and Riverhead, they're creating a new amphitheater and public park along the water. And that'll help protect against flooding as well. Think about how you can build resiliency into these projects. Not just the housing, but you have to make sure that these housings are going to be protected against Mother Nature while providing new space for community events.

And, well closer to home, Art Omi in Chatham will have, expand their world class cultural destination, new gallery provisions, and in Troy, we're extending the Riverwalk to make connections between people.

All of these all sound great, but I want to add even more. I'm adding $110 million to the project in our 2026 Budget, so what I'm saying is, even more carrots, okay? We really like our carrots here. That includes $100 million to support infrastructure, $10.5 million to help Pro-Housing communities with vital planning and technical assistance. You know how important this is? A lot of our smaller towns or our cities are busy with other projects. They need to have technical assistance, and they can't always afford to hire that person.The planning individuals, the people that, you know, expertise in how to revitalize downtowns and bring housing. So we're going to put together a fund in our Budget that'll help local communities be able to envision what they want to do, put it on paper, and put together a plan that'll be successful. That's how you build communities from the bottom up.

So that's the big picture. That's how you support your communities. That's how you support your communities; that's how you attract more people; that's how you get people who go to school at this great college to be able to stay here, because I know they want to. They know the quality of life here is second-to-none – communities like this all over New York – but if you don't have that house, if you don't have that apartment, then you have to leave, and it is tragic to me.

Families should stay together, children should grow up around grandparents whenever possible – I say this as the grandmother of a two-year-old who lives in Washington, D.C. My entire family, my siblings, all have raised their kids in another State because the jobs had left Upstate New York during tough times. It still hurts to know that I should have 21 nieces and nephews here in New York, not in other States – that's what we're trying to stop, my friends. We saw what this does, but also we can turn it around. It's not too late, it just takes the will. And our Budget, what we put forth with this additional money to reinforce how important pro-housing communities are. This is how you say what your values are, who you're prioritizing, what matters to you; that's what a Budget document is all about.

So, we're fighting for our families. We're trying to make life more affordable for our families, and if you can look at the two biggest expenses for a family, it is the cost of housing and it's the cost of child care. So, we're putting more money back in people's pockets. We're trying to help with the cost of raising children with $1,000 for young families with a little child, and $500 for school-age; cover the cost of school lunches and breakfast to take that cost off of struggling families; inflation rebate because you all paid too much money, and how about a middle class tax cut on top of it.

That's how we drive affordability here in the State of New York, and I'm working with our legislature to get that over the finish line. So, to all the communities that have not stepped up, it's time to eat your vegetables, time to get introduced to the carrots, and you won't look back. I mean, this will make you healthier, it'll make you stronger, just like your vegetables do. And I want more communities to step up, but those who have already seen the light, who know the value of this, I want to congratulate them on the success. We'll be making many, many more announcements over time of the communities of how we're going to implement their vision for the future because they had the courage to stand up and say, “Yes. Yes, we will build more housing.”

So, congratulations to all of our recipients today. Well done.

I want to introduce someone who knows what it takes to build a strong resilient community, to invest in downtowns, to improve the quality of life, to improve public safety, and literally this community. Since I've been coming up here with great frequency since 2014, I have seen - over a decade - the influence of Gary McCarthy on this downtown, and to me, it is so inspiring to see what a fellow local elected official can do with the power that's been entrusted in him as a leader. And I want to congratulate him on his success here, but also look forward to hearing his words. Mayor McCarthy.