Could NY's plan to speed environmental reviews ease LI's housing crunch?

Long Island developers hope a proposal to expedite an often lengthy environmental review process will make it easier to build in the region, where low supply has led to sky-high prices for homes in recent years.

While housing advocates have lauded the move, the reforms have drawn mixed feedback from Long Island lawmakers and advocates worried about the weakening of a strong legal tool to protect the environment.

In the budget for 2026-27, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed changes to the State Environmental Quality Review Act — also known as SEQRA — that would cap the process at two years and allow some projects to move forward without the scrutiny that can come with a full environmental assessment.

The proposed changes fit with a broader $25 billion five-year housing plan from the governor to address an affordable housing crisis throughout the state and, if they make it into the state’s final budget bill due April 1, would take effect immediately after its passing.

What is SEQRA?

The SEQRA process evaluates the potential impacts of a proposed project on the environment, said Louis Bekofsky, a managing director at the Hauppauge office of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, a civil engineering company.

Those steps usually include an environmental impact statement submitted to the municipality for public input and approval, he said, a process he's seen take anywhere from a year to a decade.

Right now, every discretionary action — such as a zoning change — goes through the SEQRA process, which encompasses “almost anything you could imagine,” said Andrew Fine, chief of staff and policy director at Open New York, an organization that advocates for housing construction. 

While the process is “a very important environmental tool,” it also presents an avenue for individuals to oppose or slow down development projects, said Laura Smith, a Rochester-based real estate lawyer at Nixon Peabody who authored an outline of the legal changes.

“It happens a lot with housing projects, especially affordable housing projects,” she said.

What are the proposed changes?

The proposed reforms would exempt housing projects that have “no significant” environmental impacts and meet certain thresholds from additional SEQRA review, such as sites outside of flood risk areas and on previously disturbed, or already developed, land, according to the state.

For municipalities with fewer than a million people, exempt housing projects also must be built on sites already connected to existing water and sewer systems, comply with zoning requirements and contain no more than 100 units, according to the executive budget bill. Those exempt residential developments would not include projects with more than 50,000 square feet of commercial space.

Other projects that would be exempt from additional SEQRA review include clean water infrastructure, “nature-based storm water management” projects, public parks and trails only on previously disturbed land and new or renovated child care centers, according to the state.

State agencies involved in permitting an environmental review will be required to evaluate audit processes for ways to speed up approvals, and the Department of Environmental Conservation will launch a platform for stakeholders to track application progress, according to a state news release.

The state will also provide training on the SEQRA process to local governments, and the budget book released Tuesday proposes to expand permitting staff at the state DEC to support environmental reviews.

What does this mean for housing on Long Island?

The proposed changes to SEQRA would promote more and faster housing development on the Island, said Kyle Strober, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island, a developer's group.

The two-year time cap for environmental reviews is reasonable for most projects and would save money for developers, said Kate Slevin, executive vice president of the New York City-based Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit advocacy group for transportation, climate and affordable housing.

A lengthier process means more spent on legal fees, property taxes, engineering fees and loan costs, said Peter Florey, the co-founder of affordable housing developer D&F Development Group. A shorter timeline — or exempting some residential developments from SEQRA — could save a developer hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Long Island developers listed government processes, including SEQRA, as one of the top three obstacles to building on Long Island in a 2025 survey of 30 firms conducted by the Long Island Association, Association for a Better Long Island and Long Island Builders Institute.

“The number one challenge that developers and investors have to investing dollars and building on Long Island is the time it takes to get projects done,” said Joe Campolo, founder and CEO of Strata Alliance, a professional services management group based in Ronkonkoma.

The timeline also helps developers accurately budget for a project, said Mike Florio, CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute, a trade group representing housing developers and builders.

A long environmental review process might mean that, by the time a developer is ready to start construction, inflation and tariffs have changed how much a project will cost, he added.

Long Island is facing a housing crisis, Campolo emphasized. The government has “no choice but to find a way to incentivize developers to build housing here, or we’re going to have a mass migration of people out of here to other states.”

What do LI lawmakers say?

The proposed SEQRA reforms have drawn mixed feedback from Long Island lawmakers.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez praised the changes in a news release for their potential to promote affordable housing “so the people who keep our town running can continue living here, including teachers, health care workers, first responders, town employees, and young families.”

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico said while he’s still evaluating the proposal, the limited sewer capacity in Brookhaven means there likely won’t be many sites that meet the state criteria to forgo additional environmental review.

Ultimately, he pointed out, zoning authority still rests with the town government.

"We want to make sure that any kind of proposal has proper environmental review, and the public has time to make sure that they can understand a proposal in our community and that they have time to have input into that," said Southold Supervisor Al Krupski of the reforms, highlighting the importance of respecting local zoning laws. 

Hempstead Town Supervisor John Ferretti criticized the proposal for superseding the authority of local government, calling it “yet another attack in Governor Hochul’s war on suburbia.”

“The proposed changes to SEQRA aren't just reckless — they're an outright power grab,” he said in an emailed statement. “This is a blatant political move by Governor Hochul that undermines local control, sidelines community input, and imposes top-down mandates on local municipalities throughout New York."

The governor's office said projects would still be subject to local approvals.

"Nothing about this policy changes local zoning,” said Hochul spokesperson Sean Butler. “But if a community wants to advance critical housing or infrastructure projects, we are going to let them build."

What do environmentalists think of the proposal?

Environment advocates expressed concerns about the proposed SEQRA reforms.

“When a development gets held up due to SEQRA it is because there are authentic environmental concerns," said Adrienne Esposito, director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale.

While "there may be some areas where SEQRA could be streamlined but not weakened," canceling environmental review for housing developments is “a very slippery slope," she warned.

Bob DeLuca, president of Group for the East End, similarly said that while the Hochul's "efforts to advance responsible affordable housing proposals are laudable," the state should be careful to avoid undermining its "most comprehensive environmental statute."

"Our region’s environmental beauty and sensitivity not only drive our economy, but reflect a core community value that reaches across all economic strata," said DeLuca, who noted he is still reviewing the changes.

Projects that impact the environment still get built, said Carolyn Zenk, an environmental lawyer in Hampton Bays.

“SEQRA doesn't say, you're not allowed to do it. It just says you have to identify the environmental concerns, and then mitigate the harm," she said, adding: “SEQRA is one of the biggest tools that environmental groups have to protect the environment.”