In the conversation, Joanna Pasceri and Jack O’Donnell discuss the New York City’s ambitious $5 billion housing program aimed at creating 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years, with $1 billion from New York state. They explore the potential for similar programs in upstate New York, noting the challenges of local control. Jack also predicts that the governor’s upcoming budget will include programs to encourage housing development. They touch on climate change legislation in Albany, which Jack believes will pass despite amendments. Additionally, they discuss the political implications of school aid cuts and the funding fight in Washington, D.C., emphasizing the need for bipartisan cooperation. Lastly, Jack mentions the internal changes within the Democratic and Republican parties and his interest in Brazilian jazz.
Summary of this Episode
Guests
- Jack O’Donnell: Managing Partner at O’Donnell and Associates
- Joanna Pasceri: Director of Communications at O’Donnell and Associates
Major Topics Covered
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- Ambitious NYC Housing Program: New York City has launched a $5 billion housing initiative, with $1 billion in funding from New York State, aiming to build 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years. This partnership reflects a strong commitment to addressing the housing shortage and affordability issues.
- Challenges of Replicating Housing Programs Upstate: Expanding similar housing initiatives to upstate New York may face challenges due to the high number of municipalities and localized control. However, there is growing advocacy for exploring adaptable models that could be tailored to various communities.
- Governor’s Budget and Housing Development: While Governor Hochul is expected to support additional housing programs in her upcoming budget, the lengthy process of implementing zoning changes and securing funding may delay visible impacts on housing availability.
- Education Aid Controversy: Proposed cuts to school aid for districts with declining enrollment, based on a recent Rockefeller report, have sparked political debate. The governor appears to be backing off from implementing the recommended changes, reflecting concerns about public backlash and potential challenges within the Democratic Party.
- Federal Government Funding Deadlines: In Washington, lawmakers are negotiating a continuing resolution to fund the federal government into March. The slim Republican majority in the House and the need for bipartisan cooperation in both chambers will play a critical role in determining the resolution’s success.
Full Transcript of the Episode
Note: This is a generated transcript. Please excuse any typos.
Joanna Pasceri 00:00
Hi everyone, and welcome to from the lobby with Jack O’Donnell. We’re back with another edition of our Monday morning minute, the podcast version of our popular newsletter Monday morning memo. It’s when we check in with Jack, managing partner of O’Donnell and Associates and author of our Monday morning memo, for more insight into the topics written about this week, a housing boom in New York City is the top story. The city says yes to an ambitious $5 billion housing program paving the way for 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years. $1 billion of that money is coming from New York state. So let’s bring in Jack to talk more about this partnership. Hi Jack. Hi Joanna. Great to be with you.Welcome to the podcast. You know, housing is a major priority for Governor Hochul who says building more homes is key to making life more affordable for New Yorkers. Is this a good first step?
Jack O’Donnell 00:56
Well, absolutely. Housing has been a real priority of the governors. She had some very ambitious proposals two years ago that didn’t quite make it and then less ambitious, but some some real compromises last year that she got done. I mean, this city of yes is really being driven by Eric Adams, the New York City Mayor. He has made it a hallmark of his mayoralty, and I think he’ll be judged on it. But getting this done, getting it through the city council, it really, really a big deal.
Joanna Pasceri 01:30
Is this a program that could be replicated in upstate New York to help create more affordable housing and other communities?
Jack O’Donnell 01:37
Well, that’s, that’s the real question we’ve heard from some voices upstate. I think we wrote about Senator Jeremy Cooney, who said, it’s time, time to bring this upstate, where you get into issues is, is around local control. And that’s the great thing and the awful thing about upstate New York. We have so many municipalities that everybody wants to havetheir own say, you know, everybody says, Well, I want it a little different in my neighborhood or in yours, or the next one over. So I think it might be hard to replicate it on a statewide level, but maybe it could be something that different municipalities opt into, or something like that. It’d be great to see. I mean, look, the state has a real serious housing shortage, and everybody’s been clear, the only way to really deal with that is to, you know, is to build more housing.
Joanna Pasceri 02:27
Any predictions of what we might see regarding new housing in the governor’s budget?
Jack O’Donnell 02:32
I’m sure that she’s going to build off of this, right? And and talk about, you know, some sort of programs that encourage it. I mean, the other real hard thing from a political standpoint about housing is that it takes a long time to get done. So just saying it, and even even getting something like this passed in New York City, which changes the zoning laws and allows for things like basement apartments and some higher density around transit oriented development. It still takes along time to get the money together and get something built, so people don’t necessarily feel it right away. So I don’t know what it’s something we’ll be watching, I think for a long time.
Joanna Pasceri 03:15
In this week’s memo, you write about the issues still outstanding in Albany this year, including legislation requiring some New York businesses to kick in billions of dollars to address the effects of climate change here in New York, do you see this legislation becoming law?
Jack O’Donnell 03:32
I do. I think it’s a pretty big issue, but has a lot of support. I mean, we’ve seen folks, including the mayor of New York City, including Congressman Torres, who’s talking about running for governor, we’ve seen a lot of different folks, really, in the center and in the Democratic Party step up and push on the governor here that said, I don’t expect what gets signed is going to look exactly like what passed the legislature. I know there’s some very serious, very important amendment conversations going on right now, so I think something gets done, but it’ll be a little different than what we’ve seen.
Joanna Pasceri 04:12
A hot budget issue here in New York, cuts in school aid. We have details in the memo of a report commissioned by the governor just released supporting some cuts in aid to districts with declining enrollment, yet the governor now seems to be backing off on this issue. So what happened here?
Jack O’Donnell 04:30
Well, this, this was a huge issue last year, and the Governor proposed ending the so called hold harmless, which means that school districts won’t get less money than they have before that they’ll be held harmless, if you will. But school districts change the amount of people that are in them, change the amount of students they’re educating, change all these kind of different things, and most of the stuff in New York is based on the 2008 school census. So I think there’s. Been a lot of energy around trying to get these updated. At the same time, school districts, just like the rest of us are buying power has gone down. Things have become more expensive, and it’s gotten really hard for them. So so this is a real hot button issue. The governor and the legislature agreed to this study. Now this study was done by Rockefeller, led by Bob Magna who used to be the state budget director and has helped a lot of other important jobs in state government. And they said, we really need to end this hold harmless, and proposed a sort of a five year wind down. And then almost immediately, we heard from the Hochul administration that they weren’t going to do that. So, you know, I think this is just a reflection of the political climate. It’s a reflection of the day Democrats had on election day. It’s a reflection on the, you know, the idea that Democrats are being challenged, and the idea that in Washington, there’s going to be an administration may not be as helpful to New York. It may not be as helpful to school districts entirely going forward. So reaction to all of those things, especially including possible primary challenge to the governor.
Joanna Pasceri 06:18
Well, turning now to DC, a plan to fund the federal government has to be approved now by December 20, but you write in the memo that it appears the solution is at least in the works.
Jack O’Donnell 06:28
Yeah, it seems like there’s broad agreement in in Washington to kind of to pass something called a continuing resolution of CR into March. And exactly when in March unclear, and some details of that are not clear, because to get that done, at least in the House of Representatives, well, in both houses, really, the majority parties are going to need help from the minority parties. Democrats in the House are negotiating with the Republican Speaker about exactly what that looks like, and they’ll be able to get some stuff done, and vice versa. In the Senate, Republicans will have some say, at least there’ll be some Republican amendments that they’ll be able to force votes on before this gets done.
Joanna Pasceri 07:15
Next year, with Republicans in control in Congress and the White House, will Democrats have any clout?
Jack O’Donnell 07:21
Well, you know, they do right now, to some extent, but, but yes, it’s going to be very limited. Joanna, I don’t want to overstate this, but especially in the house where the Republican majority is, you know, is about five votes, and then you have a couple folks leaving to join the Trump administration. So on different issues, Speaker Johnson is going to need some Democratic votes to move things forward, unless he’s got his entire conference in agreement. And frankly, there’s stuff they’re not going to be in agreement on, and we’ve seen that whether it’s the far right, the Freedom Caucus or the more moderate kind of mainstream or Main Street Republicans. So you know, he’s going to need Democrats on some things. So, you know, we talked about a couple in the memo, about a couple specific caucuses that I think are relevant, and that’s probably worth the read, but a lot more to come, and we’ll see how this works. And in the Senate, even though Republicans will have 53 votes, a lot of things require 60 votes, and closure requires 60 votes. Still some role for Democrats to play in government.
Joanna Pasceri 08:30
So what are you keeping an eye on this week? For next week’s memo?
Jack O’Donnell 08:34
Well, I think we’re, we’re watching, really, this, this funding fight in DC. We’ve also been watching, and we wrote a little about some of the choices within the Democratic Party to lead committees and sort of a changing of the guard. There at least some possibility of changing of the guard and the Republican steering committee is meeting today to make some decisions on who are going to chair a couple committees. Those details matter, because they have a lot to say about what issues get brought up and what gets done and what voices get amplified. So we’re watching that very closely.
Joanna Pasceri 09:09
Your favorite news link. Anything that stood out this past week?
Jack O’Donnell 09:12
We did put something in about some some Brazilian jazz. As you and some of our listeners know, my wife is Brazilian. My mother-in-law is from Brazil, and so, you know, we’ve got an affinity for that. Some of that Brazilian jazz has been giving me a smile on these dark, cold, rainy days. So I focused on that today.
Joanna Pasceri 09:37
It was a pretty popular link in our memo this week so you can listen how beautiful it is. It’s really wonderful. We look forward to another interesting memo next week, and don’t miss out if you aren’t getting our Monday morning memo in your inbox each week. It is easy to subscribe. You just head to our website at O’Donnell solutions.com that’s O’Donnell solutions.com Thanks for joining us for this Monday morning minute we’ll be back from the lobby with Jack O’Donnell.
