ALBANY – The new state budget, being adopted two months late, includes Governor Hochul’s plan to ease environmental reviews on previously disturbed land.
The theory is to protect other land that has never been developed.
The newly modified state environmental quality review act (SEQR) has the support of among other local officials, Kingston Mayor Steven Noble, who said it will speed up the process to develop much needed housing.
“Housing is so critical as well as building parks and critical infrastructure like sewers and to be able to have SEQR be more in line with what our cities are facing to me made a whole lot of sense,” he said. “It’s going to build housing more effectively and more efficiently. It’s going to save costs and it’s only on disturbed areas of land and so it balances the environmental impacts of this housing development.”
And the mayor said with the critical need for more housing statewide, it will allow that development to move along on a faster track.
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