Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Long Island Winners of Downtown Revitalization Initiative and NY Forward Program

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that Village of Valley Stream will receive $10 million in funding as the Long Island winner of the ninth round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), and the Village of Patchogue will receive $4.5 million as the Long Island winner of the fourth round of NY Forward. For Round 9 of the DRI and Round 4 of the NY Forward Program, each of the State's 10 economic development regions is being awarded $10 million from each program, for a total state commitment of $200 million in funding and investments to help communities boost their economies by transforming downtowns into vibrant neighborhoods. To date, total investments in the DRI and NY Forward have reached $1.4 billion.

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 afternoon, everyone. First of all, I want to thank the American Legion Post 854 for welcoming us. The Commander, where are you, Commander? Thank you so much. I thought it would be significant to come to a place to remember the veterans who have worked so hard and on Memorial Day we honor those who've passed, but I've always appreciated - as a former member of the Armed Services Committee and traveled to Afghanistan and other hotbed areas around the world - that we always know that our freedom has been preserved by the people who come in places like this. So please tell all your members how grateful we are for their service, especially approaching Memorial Day weekend, Commander, thank you.

It is great to be back in Valley Stream. I was first brought here by your amazing Assemblymember, Solages, who brought me here to walk the streets of the neighborhoods and go to little shops. Did we not make some candy? We went to a little candy shop, too. She had my heart right from the outset. So it is an incredible area with a lot of personality, and I know that you just love it so much, Assemblymember. So let's give another round of applause to our Assemblymember Solages. And Cynthia Nunez, I want to thank you for all the great work you do on the county legislature. It's not easy work. I spent a lot of years, not just as a local official, but as a county official, and have a real appreciation for all of our elected officials. So thank you very much. Another round of applause for Nassau County Legislator. Kevin Waszak, I want to thank you for representing the Village of Valley Stream, our trustee. Let's give him a round of applause as well, Kevin. One of the people who traveled the furthest today, but for a good reason, the mayor of the Village of Patchogue, Paul Pontieri, thank you. We've had some fun hanging out with beers in the middle of your streets, and we won't go into too many details, but fun place to hang out. Okay, cone of silence, right? Okay. And Kevin Law from my administration, doing an incredible job as the Chair of Empire State Development, who guides all of our economic development strategies.

It's great to be back on Long Island. It didn't earn the name Strong Island for nothing. I know that you can't govern from a place far away known as Albany without showing up. You have to show up. That's why I'm here today, to listen to the people of this incredible place. I'm always extolling the assets of Long Island because I have such a deep appreciation for the character, the personality, the beautiful, beautiful, natural assets. I just came from Jones Beach. If you didn't catch that announcement, you're going to be able to see, yes, he prefers to be called General, but General George Washington is going to be one of our re-enactors Memorial Day weekend as we launch incredible activities. We're waiving the parking fees so families can have a little more money back in their pockets next weekend when they come out for Memorial Day. But also the first ever 1,000 drones will be performing patriotic scenes over the Atlantic Ocean. So you have to see this. I'm real excited about this. Great to make that announcement here.

We talked about investing on Long Island, and since I was Lieutenant Governor and we spent countless, Kevin knows how many days I was here, but also going to every single diner, every single candy shop and all, and such an appreciation of what you have here. I knew as Governor, if I could invest more money into communities and not tell them what to do, but to allow them to come up with their own vision- what their residents want to see. That's why I love this Downtown Revitalization program so much because that's exactly what it does. It empowers localities to be able to fund a vision that they otherwise could not.

Like I said, I spent 14 years on a local town board as a councilor, 14 years. And if every once in a while we get a little couple of crumbs from Albany for here, maybe $25,000 to fix the roof of a community center or something. But It never was the critical mass that was needed to really make transformational changes. We just never had that. So this is a program that I cherish because I've seen now over many years the impact once all the plans are fully executed, and that's why I'm proud to be here today in this community to talk about why this place matters, why this place matters. And again it's strategically located from JFK, It's a home base for businesses and workers in logistics and transportation industries. That's a real asset for us. Also people have told me they needed more housing. Does anybody sound familiar to anybody? Need more housing? Yeah. Yeah. I know it's hard to do, believe me, I know, but we have to. What other options do we have? Because you've created such an incredible community, people want to stay here. They want to come here. Kids who were born here want to raise their families here. And we are denying them that opportunity by not having the ambition to just put up more housing, especially transit-oriented development, places close to transportation assets. And so - I'm just committed to this. I've been investing in communities to help realize their visions and so I wanted to talk about the need for more housing and how we're executing. I also want to say a couple more things about Valley Stream. Sometimes people feel like life is hard and they're just not getting ahead, and I know that that's real. I know that people who thought that having a job would mean that someday they'd be able to own a house. When you realize now that the average age for first-time home buyers, if they're lucky enough to get out of the apartment, if they're lucky enough to have an apartment in the first place, the average age is now 40. It used to be 30 just half a generation ago. Look at that fact that these young people working hard, going to get an education or learning the trades, doing everything society expects them to do, and they can't have the same dreams that their parents thought of and were able to live. I think that's fundamentally unfair. So places like Valley Stream and Patchogue, they matter, and we want to make sure that people can afford to live there, to have the great educational systems, the great amenities, the great charm, and again, the wonderful beaches and assets that other parts of the country just envy.

That is why I'm proud today to announce and thank our Assemblymember Solages, and also Nassau County Legislator Nunez for your tireless work to make sure that we could deliver for this community that you both cherish so deeply. So that is why you are the winner of $10 million. There we go. Downtown Revitalization Award. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Everyone from Valley Stream, stand up. This is our dream team.

[...]

So what are we going to do with this $10 million? You're going to spend it, is right. And I'll keep an eye on it. But we've been able to do the same for other communities, Westbury, Central Islip, Baldwin, Amityville, Riverhead, Huntington Station, and more. Now it's your turn. It's your turn to shine. And what ideas have been put forth by the committee, everyone who worked so hard on this, is that you're asking for increased pedestrian and bike access to make downtown more walkable. That's so important for the moms pushing strollers and our senior citizens just trying to get some fresh air, taking a stroll, maybe walking to the doctor's office. But also celebrating arts in the Village Green, a cultural arts center, the Village Green, a brand-new opportunity there. New signage and lighting displays around the Long Island Railroad overpasses in downtown just to spruce it up a lot - they're usually not the most beautiful places in the world. I've walked under them, those areas - we can do a lot better, right everyone? But the Village, I'm proud the Village is doing this, is looking at mixed-use housing developments, and they're looking to create Long Island's first ever cottage court.

What this is about it's affordable homes that still are beautiful places and welcoming, and this is going to really be a trendsetter, and I'm hoping that others will see the vision that you came up with and are now going to be executing this. So I want to thank all of you for doing that. I also notice we have your brother here too. I just saw your brother. Legislator Solages from our county legislature, I want to thank him as well. Carrie, Carrie has joined us here today. It's affordable single-family homes built around a shared public space, the old-fashioned ways that they did places as far away as Europe. It was always that center place that green, and then you build housing around that, and the development occurs. So I'm real excited about this. So I look forward to coming back for the groundbreakings for all these. This is, especially the fact that it's going to be on former industrial property that sat vacant for so many years just mocking the community, saying, "There's nothing you're going to be able to do with us. We're here forever." And we're standing up and saying, "No. No, that is not our vision." We're going to make this a place full of life and not desolation and abandonment. It's a place where people are going to thrive. This is the kind of inspired thinking which has made Long Island so spectacular. The people who came up with this, the partnership with government, the businesses who have been sometimes long-suffering but never gave up on this community, and of course the families who want to make this their home.

So it'll - hopefully projects like this will take us from housing scarcity to housing abundance. Abundance. Because there's a reason why the average home price on Long Island is $800,000. That is stunning. The average cost of rent is now $3,000. It is all because of the lack of supply. And I know this, because all you have to do is go up to a community like New Rochelle - New Rochelle set forth a plan to build, and they now have been able to not just decrease the cost of rent or just stop the escalation, they have literally cut the cost of rent in that entire community because they built enough supply. And it is vibrant. Everybody wants to be there now because they can finally afford it. That is my vision for communities like Valley Stream and others. We can do that, and we've seen it happening in Mayor Pontieri's community as well, and I'll talk about that in a minute.

So we have a real housing crisis. It's been way too expensive. We can't solve it without building more homes and also just putting up with a lot - putting up with a lot of opposition. And that's what SEQR was used for many times. Those who did not want projects to happen just used SEQR to kill them. How do I know this? Remember the 14 years I mentioned? I was the liaison to the planning board, the zoning board, our IDA and the traffic safety board, which could kill a project by saying it's going to take five years to do a traffic study.

I know how projects can go there and die, but I also know how they can be unleashed. And what I'm doing in this Budget, one of my top priorities, is to allow communities to have the vision they want to have and not have artificial barriers in the way. We'll always protect the environment first, always - job number one - but when there's laws that are being used as a weapon to stop projects and can add two more years of review, two more years of review, costing, taking 50 percent longer than it does to build housing in other states, literally 50 percent longer, I'm not proud of that. I think that just says we're obstructionists and NIMBYism rules the day here.

We cannot have that. We cannot have people going even over just to live in New Jersey and work in New York because they built more housing. So we can do it right. You do it according to a plan. You do it the way the community wants. But let's start building, and that's what we've also included in our Budget this year. That's going to make a difference, that SEQR reform. So I'm ambitious about this. I'm really excited about this. So I thank Valley Stream for standing up and saying, "We will build. We will build here," and that is going to be transformational, as I said.

Now I also know that there's some smaller communities around the state, having been in every single community in this state myself, and places like Patchogue are charming, but they're not huge. And so, I said, "Why can't we have a program that's similar to the DRI?" Same principles: let the communities come forward with their vision, we fund it, but on a smaller scale. Because so many said, "We're just not quite big enough to be able to do that." So I created the New York Forward program to make sure those communities are not left out. So I'm really proud, this is why the Mayor traveled so far here, that the village of Patchogue has been awarded 4.5 million in New York Forward funding.

Congratulations, Mayor. Like I said I remember when I was - showed up when I was Lieutenant Governor, hadn't been there before, and the Alive after 5 festivities - I was hard to leave, and I'm Irish. Bring me a pint and I'm happy. But we strolled also, a few years ago we came back and we saw the Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts. Hundreds of units of new housing that drove that ambition, making a difference, and we stopped at the Colony Shop, where I got some clothes for my first granddaughter. Now I have another one, so I actually have to go back shopping again for granddaughter clothes.

Now, we also awarded $3 million for Patchogue for a solar panel project at the Long Island Railroad Station, which is exactly what we should be doing, and I'm really glad to have you join the other communities, the other New York Forward communities - Lyndhurst, Long Beach, Mineola, Brookhaven, North Bellport, Farmingdale - all the recipients as well. But I loved your application. It was called Storefront to Shorefront. Clever, right? Good marketing. Storefront to Shorefront. And it was full of ideas on how to connect the thriving business district to the bay, the Patchogue Lake and Patchogue River, brilliant thinking.

I just have always wondered why people didn't do this before. But we're doing it now because of leaders like you, Mayor, and I want to thank you and everyone who worked on the committee as well. Let's give them a round of applause. These things don't happen alone. So what we're looking to fund is pedestrian and bike improvements to the Waverly Avenue and South Ocean Avenue corridors, extending the river walk for another half a mile and improvements to the arts district and the library.

So to Patchogue and Valley Stream, I say: Welcome to the class of graduates, the beneficiaries of our programs here. And I'm going to keep funding these programs. I'm going to keep building more housing, as the Assemblymember knows and has worked closely with this - a $25 billion housing plan for affordable housing across the state. And I said, "Five years, 100,000. Are we going to get there?" Guess what? We're ahead of schedule. We've already done 81,000 housing units thus far, and we're just getting warmed up.

We've been working really hard on this. Also trying to just make sure that we break down barriers. We break down barriers. That's what I have to do. And again, those who know me and starting to get to know me, I hate the status quo. Status quo is never good enough. It shows that people weren't pushing hard enough and putting up with enough opposition, but willing to break through it to achieve the results that communities are crying out for and demanding. But they need the leadership to do that, and so I'm proud to do that. And again, I want to make sure people know we're not rolling back local environmental reviews. We're not rolling back permits or approvals. But we're just saying no more obstacles, and we're going to continue building.

So also for communities on Long Island here, I'll just throw out a couple more things while I have your attention. We also came to an agreement with the legislative leaders in the bodies - Assembly and the Senate - on auto insurance reforms. Now, why this was important - the system was broken. It was filled with fraud and legal loopholes, and there were stories that literally arose on Long Island that said, "There's abuse going on." There are literally criminal enterprises where you have unscrupulous lawyers - not all lawyers are unscrupulous, most are not - but then you have this category of criminals who are creating an opportunity for people to simulate, create fraudulent accidents, literally slam on your brakes in front of somebody, and then go to the lawyer, find a doctor who will say your injuries are far more than what they should be, than they actually are. And the whole system was defrauding everybody, and there's so many loopholes that someone who's a drunk driver can go racing through a red light, cause an accident and get a jackpot payout from a jury award.

This isn't fair. You know why it's not fair? Because insurance premiums, auto insurance premiums on Long Island have gone up 80 percent since 2019. Your residents have been suffering. Our residents have been suffering. And I said, "Status quo, not working for this Governor. Let's take it on." Not an easy fight. Not an easy fight. But I feel so proud that we're going to start seeing real results, reductions. We've seen other states that have done exactly what we did, and their insurance premiums stopped going up and up, leveled off, and came down.

That's what I want to promise the people of Long Island as we continue focusing on their needs, as well as working with our Legislature to deliver help for your utility bills. A billion dollars we're giving back to the people of New York to help pay for your utility bills.

And heaven help us, the cost of gasoline going up and up. I just remember filling my minivan with a couple of kids. I was the soccer mom - the minivan, how expensive it was, I thought it was. Back when I was younger it was maybe $3 a gallon, three and a half. It is so high now. So everything I'm doing is geared toward relieving that stress on families, but especially here on Long Island, because I want people to stay here. I really want them to stay here. So, as long as I'm Governor I'll keep fighting for Strong Island and celebrating all your great successes like we have here today. So congratulations, everyone. Congratulations.