by: AIA New York
The 2022 New York State primary elections are around the corner. Races for governor and for the State Assembly are still scheduled to be held on June 28 as originally planned; however, a federal judge moved the congressional and state senate primary date from June 28 to August 23 due to drawing of congressional districts.
For this election cycle, AIA New York, AIA Bronx and AIA Brooklyn prepared and circulated a questionnaire to assess positions of candidates relative to the advocacy interests of our members and architecture more broadly. An advisory team of members reviewed the submitted questionnaires and have highly rated Chris Lebron, who is running for the 75th New York Assembly seat, and Adam Roberts, for State Assembly District 73. We encourage all members to vote in their respective districts.
In addition, in April, the State Legislature and Governor agreed to the Fiscal Year 2023 NYS Budget. Despite its name, the NYS Budget includes legislative items that do not directly affect the state’s finances. Often, these policies are included in the budget because they are too controversial to pass individually as bills. Debate over some highly divisive issues, such as the proposed Buffalo Bills stadium, significantly delayed the budget’s passage.
This also meant that major proposals were left out of the final budget, pushing them to be debated at the end of the 2022 legislative session last week. Many of these issues were critical to the practice of architecture. The most notable bill supported by AIANY that was passed was the NYCHA Housing Trust, which will be critical to ensuring NYCHA gains the funding and procurement flexibility it needs to provide a decent standard of living for its residents.
Meanwhile, two bills supported by AIANY did not pass: the All-Electric Building Act (A8431/S6843) and the ADU legalization bill (A9802/S8783). Both were seriously debated and are likely to resurface in Albany next year.
Other major legislation related to architecture, but for which AIANY did weigh in, also failed to move forward. This included an extension of the 421-a tax exemption and Good Cause Eviction (A5573/S3082). 421-a had significant support from the real estate and construction industries while Good Cause Eviction was strongly opposed by both. AIANY will continue to keep its members updated over the course of the summer and fall as new legislation is prepared to be introduced in Albany come 2023.