Governor Hochul: "Working with my team and RuthAnne, we developed a $25 billion affordable housing package to build 100,000 units across the state of New York. And my friends, we are now ahead of schedule, and projects like this with 1,000 units are all part of that strategy. So it's happening. It's happening.”
Hochul: “People sometimes just need a little extra help in life, and this home gives them a purpose. It gives them security. It gives them the sense of dignity that is sometimes so overlooked when we don't take care of people and their families. So I believe in this project. We are going to be continuing to work on this and many others.”
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced major progress on the state’s Vital Brooklyn Initiative with the completion of Utica Crescent and the start of construction at Sparrow Square, which together will deliver 583 new affordable residential units in East Flatbush. The $1.4 billion Vital Brooklyn Initiative is a comprehensive community development program to address social, economic, and health disparities in Central Brooklyn neighborhoods, some of the most chronically underserved areas of the State. Utica Crescent and Sparrow Square build on the completion of other Vital Brooklyn milestones the Governor has announced including The Rise in Brownsville, Alafia Phase One in East New York, and Herkimer Gardens in Bedford Stuyvesant. With the completion of Utica Crescent and the groundbreaking of Sparrow Square, more than 2,500 homes are completed or under construction under the Vital Brooklyn Initiative.
So this project – the reason I want to come out here, and when I leave, believe it or not, I'm going to another housing project in Brooklyn funded by HCR and supported by all of us because things are finally happening. When I first became Governor, I declared that we have to stop this era of people just saying “no” to housing. Because of that lack of ambition, that failure to break down barriers and to stand up to NIMBYs, we were not building enough housing for our residents, those who need supportive housing, and anybody who just wants to live in a home they can afford. And people are going elsewhere because of this. We're losing Black and brown middle class families going to other states. Young people getting out of college or starting their career could not even live in the communities they were raised in, and we had to put an end to that. Working with my team and RuthAnne, we developed a $25 billion affordable housing package to build 100,000 units across the state of New York. And my friends, we are now ahead of schedule, and projects like this with 1,000 units are all part of that strategy. So it's happening. It's happening.
Also, you look at this as the site of a project that had a different history to it. And to be able to convert land that had been used for other purposes, the psychiatric center and the asylum for many years, to be able to be a place that is going to be welcoming. Let people know, this is what I love about going to these projects. When I can open someone's door for them and welcome them home, you see in their faces that they know they matter. And that is what happens when people are cast aside. They don't feel welcomed by society because of their circumstances.
People sometimes just need a little extra help in life, and this home gives them a purpose. It gives them security. It gives them the sense of dignity that is sometimes so overlooked when we don't take care of people and their families. So I believe in this project. We are going to be continuing to work on this and many others.
I think we're in for about $240 million, RuthAnne, somewhere in that range? That's pretty darn good. Let's give that a round of applause. But this is all part of Vital Brooklyn. We've built over 11,000 housing units in Brooklyn, $2 billion since I've been governor alone, and we're just getting started. So I'm looking forward to this project. I'm also heading over to Utica Avenue for a project there. But I also want to say this. We also had to challenge the Legislature to help us do what's right when it comes to the laws that were holding back development. Why it was taking two years longer to do housing developments, to follow and comply with the SEQRA laws that are already being – they're redundant. These reviews are already happening. So we will literally save $82,000 for our developers in the projects and people like Breaking Ground, $82,000 in savings per unit that is built in the City of New York. That's how we start incentivizing more housing to be built, make it more affordable, cut down on all the long delays, and I'm really proud that working with Brian Cunningham, we were able to get that done.
So I will take on any fight because nothing will get in my way to fulfill the dream that I have as someone whose parents used to live in a trailer park. That reminds you that you can always look back where you came from and realize how fortunate we are, but also there are people still living in that trailer park. And those are the people I fight for every day, the people who never had that fair shot in life. And I'm there with all of you to give that to these individuals who need supportive services, who need our help. And that's what government is all about, to be there to help people when they need us the most.
Thank you very much, everyone. Let's continue on. I look forward to the ribbon cutting.
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