Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $16 Million for New Rochelle’s LINC Revitalization Plan, and Highlights Housing Affordability Progress as Part of Her “Let Them Build” Agenda

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced $16 million in State funding awarded to advance New Rochelle’s LINC (Linking Innovation, Nature, and Community) Project. This funding will fill a funding gap after money was rescinded from the federal government which was vital to the project. LINC will deliver a connection between the downtown area, the train station, the library and Lincoln Avenue to support local residents and businesses as the city continues its surge of economic growth and development. As part of her “Let Them Build” agenda, Governor Hochul also toured Stella housing Phases I & II today and highlighted the ongoing success of housing development of all types across New Rochelle including market-rate, mixed income and affordable developments, where collaboration between the city, state, county, and other stakeholders has resulted in the creation of approximately 4,500 new homes since 2020. To continue this progress and increase affordability in communities across New York, Governor Hochulalso continued to highlight her “Let Them Build” proposal — a series of landmark reforms to speed up housing and infrastructure development and lower costs as part of her 2026 State of the State.

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 morning, New Rochelle.We've got all the Westchester heavy hitters with us here today, don’t we? This is incredible. I want to first of all, thank the Boys and Girls Club for welcoming us here today. Thank you. And as you heard, we have our congressman here today. He's home from the trenches, the front lines, and I think he looks really overjoyed to be back home, personally. Congressman George Latimer.

Commissioner of HCR RuthAnne Visnauskas. And I want to thank RuthAnne. Where are you, RuthAnne? Not here. Oh, okay. We just took a tour of an incredible project I'll talk about, but she probably got delayed with that. But also my partner in government in Albany, a great friend, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Leader of the Senate. And our County Executive is here, Ken Jenkins. Thank you. And my partners in the Legislature—RuthAnne just got the nicest shout out. She's probably out there building another house. But we also have our Senator Shelley B. Mayer has joined us, Assemblymember Steven Otis, Assembly Member Nader Sayegh and Assemblymember MaryJane Shimsky. And again, thank you to all of our local elected officials as a former local official myself.

I just had the most extraordinary experience. Now you have to be in government to get really excited about what I get excited about. You know, who gets more excited about housing construction projects than a governor or mayor or a local official.

But we just took a tour of the Stella Apartments right down the street, and what a beautiful place to call home. We met a woman who's just so overjoyed, Denise, to show us her apartment, and it’s life changing for people. Life changing. The joy in her face when she could look out of her apartment, and, you know, point to the beautiful view—well, there was a lot of fog today, so it really didn't look that great today, but—I know it's there. And, she just talked about what it's like to live in a place like this. And this is, you know, mixed use. It's 25 percent affordable, it's 75 percent market, but you would never know all the apartments are identical. The amenities are identical, so she feels like she has the dignity that so many people are wanting for. And that is what drives us as we focus on ways to build more housing in the state, to give everyone that sense of value that comes from having a home that's yours. And so I just had the best morning. For me, that's as good as it gets. It’s a beautiful place.

And then I was walking with the mayor—what a great mayor you have here, by the way. I just love her. The Mayor of New Rochelle,Yadira Ramos-Herbert, just—you're going to hear from her after I speak, but I can see leadership just exuding from this woman who's so passionate about what she does. And we talked about how what also makes a difference is not just the rentals, but to build condos. Because when you can start allowing people the opportunity to create generational wealth, that's not just taking that rent check and throwing it out the window every single month for years and years, and maybe your whole life – when you can put it into a home that's yours and creates equity and value. That’s next level greatness and I want to make sure that is available to everyone as well. So that's what we're doing here. Mayor, you're doing that right here.

And it's right in the heart of downtown. This is a wonderful downtown. This is an extraordinary downtown, and it's just a short walking distance from Metro North. We call this transit-oriented development, and so many people hear that and are like, “Oh, no, not transit-oriented development.” But, come see what it looks like. It just makes all the sense in the world. You’ve got to wonder why it wasn't done from the very beginning. Why weren't we doing this all along? Why is there a parking lot there now? Well, parking lots are important, but so is housing, and we can have the combination of the right mix. And so we built that with $150 million of state funding. It's a shining example of New Rochelle's ambitious plan and vision that’s brilliant, and I'm going to make sure I take that all over the state and tell everybody else to do the same.

And, you know, as I said, I know why we do what we do. And sometimes you don't always see the results of policies that are hard fought. I made housing the cornerstone of my agenda four years ago when people said, “Don't talk about housing. People don't want it. They don't want it, you can't make them do it.” Well, okay. We're going to try, we're going to try hard. And I worked with the Legislature and the leaders to come up with what is now known as the most transformational housing policies in 50 years. And I want to thank everyone who was involved in that. It was hard fought, and I have the scars to show for it, but they were worth it. They were worth it.

And I said, “We have to challenge the status quo, to shake things up when you’re in government.” Otherwise, why are you taking up space in these jobs when you're not willing to do that. And that's what I believe my job is all about. I don't mind taking the slings and arrows for a worthy cause. And sometimes you just also look at the red tape, like, why is there so much red tape? What does that red tape do? Why is it standing in the way of building more housing? And so we've had to do a lot. And what we did in the process by questioning the underlying premise of where we were and why we weren’t doing better and pushing that, we've now rescued 71,000 homes and cleared the way for 350,000 new homes statewide that otherwise would not have been there. And local governments are starting to step up.

I find there's been a sea change in how local governments feel about Albany's partnership, encouraging them and providing the resources to build more housing. It is extraordinary, and you know we had to do this. Back in 2023, they all said, “Alright, just give us more carrots.” And I did a press conference and I said, “Don't give me those little bags of carrots or those little cheesy ones you just kind of wonder, were they made in a factory or something? I want one of those big ones, you know, the ones with the big green stalk. Those big guys that are hanging down there.” I did a press conference and held them up and said, “You wanted carrots? I'm giving you carrots.” And now it's $750 million worth of carrots that we’re giving the communities to build like they never did before.

Because, what happened was, I will just tell you the story, there were only 20 communities when we said, “If you want to be a pro housing community, you have to have growth targets.” Now they're not a lot, it wasn't even that high. But we just wanted to be on a trajectory to build more housing and to break down barriers and speed up the process and just do what it takes. So, parents who want to have their grandkids grow up in the same community – don't have to say goodbye to them and send them off to another state like what's been happening.

My grandkids live in another state. Go figure. I’ve got to get them back home. Or, people want to downsize. They love their community, but they don't need the big house because the kids are gone. You know, can they still live in their communities? Or the young people say, “I went to school around here. It's a great area. I want to live here now, but there's just not enough housing.” And so, what we had to do is have a plan, and only 20 communities stepped up at first. The first year we did it, it was $650 million for 20 communities. Okay. Do you all want a part of this or not? Now we have 400 communities that have said yes, because I said, “You're missing out on a good game here.” So that's for DRIs. You successfully won a DRI here: Downtown Revitalization Initiative, or the New York Forward Initiative for smaller communities, or Restore New York or Main Street New York, money for sewers.

We bundled all the discretionary money together that we used to just give out to others and said, “You could have it if you're a pro housing committee.” That's how you start driving change. Perhaps reluctantly at first, but now they're starting to see the value of this. And so that's what I'm excited about. But more than any other community, New Rochelle embodies the whole pro-housing ethos. And I want to say, you know, you build consensus, you get the shovels in the ground and the results speak for themselves.

And what is so exciting, since 2020, this community has built more than 4,500 new homes. 4,500 in one community, and the population's only about, what – 88,000 or so? I mean, you're really punching above your weight here. And there was a time back in 2016, 2017, where you issued about 39—not 3,900—39 housing permits a year, and now it's over a thousand. So look at that jump. And that's why this place has become so desirable. But you know what the best part of this is? I've been saying this for four straight years: You build more supply, the prices will go down, right? Supply and demand Economics 101, which I didn't even take a class, I just knew this without even taking the class, right? I didn't even need to take a class. You build more supply, the prices go down. The average rent in this community has dropped by three-to-five percent. So look at the national trends or the statewide trends. The rents are going up exponentially. Nationwide is up about 31 percent. But It's dropping here in New Rochelle because they had the ambition to keep building. So let's give another round applause to New Rochelle for leading the charge.

And that's money back in people's pockets. And so thank you for showing us the way. And I want to make sure that you get out all over and talk about this. And you haven't changed your character, you've enriched your story, you've enriched your character in your downtown, the vibrancy and the investments that you've made. You're deploying that to help small businesses on Main Street. It's a brilliant strategy, but our work is far from done and too many projects are stuck in regulatory hell. And it is hell.

I spent 14 years on a local council and I cannot tell you how many products that we wanted to see, but then they would say, “Oh, but you didn't do this part of the SEQRA review or the draft DEIS and the preliminary DEIS, and you have to do this, and you have to do that,” and then there was always the NIMBY crowd that would take an element of that and say, “Well, you didn't quite do this, and then let's go to court for four more years.” And there were so many ways to kill projects.

I watched this from a front row where we just wanted to just make things happen in my community and it was almost impossible. So projects that communities want, okay, this is not saying you have to do this, but if there's a community that wants a project and it's housing, primarily housing or some clean energy or critical infrastructure, new child care centers, I mean, we can unlock all that.

So what I'm saying is, we can drive change by lifting the barriers because the SEQRA laws that have been in place since 1975 have not changed in 50 years, and they've not caught up with what we need to do now. Now when they're put in place, probably important. I mean, I grew up in a very heavily polluted, toxic area, not far from Love Canal.

And I watched Lake Erie become polluted. I thought the sky was supposed to be orange because seriously, the skies were orange. The smoke stacks were just billowing all this smoke out. And no one said a word. You know why? Because it was 20,000 jobs. Dad worked there, grandpa worked there, my uncles worked there. That was living in Buffalo. No one said anything, but I'm still surprised I'm alive. You know, you think about the exposure and the health effects, and now we're much more educated.

So, okay, back then we put these in place, but maybe it's gone too far now. Maybe we should realize that the local community is doing the same review. They're looking at the water, and the sewer and the permits. They're doing all this already, and then we're layering around on top of that. Okay, now you need to do two more years of review on average for SEQRA review to come to the same results, right? It doesn't make sense.

And when I found out when I was speaking about this with the Mayor of New York City a few days ago, I don't know what it would be here, but the average apartment being built in New York City—add on per apartment, not building, per apartment $82,000 more to cover the cost of what the state requires under SEQRA review, the delays in time and all the burdensome studies they have to do. So we can shave off that cost as well. Look at that as being a factor in driving down the cost of an apartment.

So, I want to get this done. I want to modernize our permitting system so they're not duplicative and help local governments just navigate the process. Now, like I said, we're not rolling back environmental protections. I'm a staunch environmentalist, I truly am. It's who I am coming from where I came from. But we're not eliminating local approval – this is up to you. But if you want it, when you say yes to housing that won't hurt the environment, the state is going to get out of the way and let you build.

You've waited too long and other communities need to know whether it's housing, infrastructure—it's about connecting. We're going to build, we're going to connect people with opportunity and connect communities. But back in the 1960s, 50s and 60s, we talked about connections. There were a lot of cities across America, but I can point to so many examples here in New York where people intentionally separated Black and Brown communities from white communities. It was an intentional form of racism through infrastructure. And they made room for super highways.

But why did they drive it through that neighborhood? Why did it have to be that neighborhood? Because people did not have a political voice at the time. I read about this in Buffalo. We're trying to reconnect a community that was severed by something known as the Kensington Expressway—Crystal Peoples-Stokes has been a big driver of this. And there was no reason to do it. And I read an article back then and they basically said that the white power downtown wanted to make this happen so people can get out of the city faster and start developing the suburbs, right? The white flight of the 1960s. It was real and it was government-sanctioned racism at the time when they were building these highways.

And so New Rochelle's Lincoln Park neighborhoods, they raised entire streets, kicked people out of their homes and bulldozed businesses. And they erased a shared history, their identity that was at the center of so many lives. And we can't undo that generational harm that was caused to those families, but we can step up now. We can say we can right the wrongs of the past and stitch these neighborhoods back together.

We can build a strong, vibrant community where people are proud to live, raise their kids, build businesses for the next 100 years together, connected. And that's why today I'm so proud to announce $16 million in additional state funding to help reconnect Lincoln Park with downtown New Rochelle. Let's do that; $16 million, let's bring it back together.

Thank you.

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This will support — give the Mayor a tissue. This is what I love to see in elected officials — passion and heart. Passion and heart, a love of a community that is so profound.

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You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. This will support the LINC Project and the ongoing transformation of Memorial Highway into walkable streetscape. It'll have pedestrian crossings, bike lanes, parks and new recreation spaces — and, of course, housing. We're going to be supporting over 11,000 approved housing projects with this. Isn't that extraordinary? Unlock 1,500 additional homes.

My friends, it's a whole new era. A whole new era is opening up here and this highway will no longer block out the sun, and car fumes will no longer spew into homes and the sounds of speeding cars will no longer ring in people's ears. Today's announcement is part of a bigger mission to reconnect communities of color that were carved up by these highways so long ago. The Inner Loop in Rochester, the Livingston Bridge in Albany — we're working on right now — the I-81 in Syracuse. I was a student at Syracuse University, and I didn't understand why there was this highway that literally cut off the campus from the city. And I'd come back all these years later as Governor and I say, “We're reconnecting people and building homes in that place.”

And so people in the future will say, “Yeah, they sure screwed up a long time ago, but the people in this era found out and fixed it.” And so I'm really proud to be part of that. The Cross Bronx Expressway — reconnecting these communities. We're refusing to wait any longer and we're sending a message that your lives matter. These communities matter. These neighborhoods matter, and we'll do anything in our power to make sure they can be the very best they can be.

So let me wrap up by saying this: This is much more than reconstructing some roads or building homes. It's about healing a city — about healing a city and putting on a path forward that talks about eliminating what was a shadow over a community for decades as highway. And it'll resonate for generations to come. The kids born now will never know what that was like. And it'll change how your grandkids are going to travel around New Rochelle, and the people they interact with, and the opportunities that they'll have, and the air they'll breathe and the homes they'll live in.

And I look forward to continuing to partner with leaders, like we have here in our extraordinary Mayor. She stepped in. I was very good friends with your former mayor as well.

Is Noam here? Noam's here. Hi Noam. Alright. Well, Noam Bramson. Well, I used to walk —

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Well thank God we have you, Mayor.

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No, stand up, Noam. Noam helped launch a lot of this. Noem, you truly launched so much of this, Mayor, and I spent a lot of time with you in the city and you truly loved your community. And so you've really put us on a trajectory that we can stand on your shoulders today. And I thank you and honor that as well. So I'm so glad you're here.

And I look forward to continuing to partner with the leaders of this community to build and give you what you deserve and have waited for a long time. So with that, let me welcome up your Mayor, Ramos-Herbert.