How This Election Perpetuates New York’s Housing Crisis

“Looking for a one bedroom, above ground apartment come December first that allows a quiet, well-behaved yellow lab. Anywhere from Mattituck to Rocky Point. Please pm if you know of anything.”

That message, posted Nov. 2 on NextDoor by Christina, a veterinary technician for the past 25 years, shows how hard it is to find an appropriate rental on the North Fork of Long Island.

Apartments.com shows only six one-bedrooms available in that wide area — it’s about a 15-minute drive from one end to the other. The cheapest one is 560 square feet and $2,000 a month. The others are $2,300, $2,600, $3,000 and $7,250.

As Christina searched desperately for a place to live, Mattituck resident Stephen Kiely was mailing campaign materials promising to make her quest even harder.

The very first words on the Assembly candidate’s campaign literature are “Stop Overdevelopment.” The other side of his mailer says “Gov. [Kathy] Hochul and the extreme radical left want to urbanize the East End.”

Fact check: Hochul’s Housing Compact, which she shelved in April 2023 because Republicans were using it as a wedge issue to retain control of the House of Representatives, called for 1 percent annual increases in housing units over 10 years.

That’s adding one home for every 100. Kiely calls this “high-density housing” and “sprawl” in the same sentence, although the terms are contradictory and neither describes the 1 percent annual growth plan that ceased to exist a year and a half ago.

As if striving to make his campaign literature as Orwellian as possible, Kiely accuses his opponent of “Politicizing Our Way of Life” for supporting — gasp — apartments. “I’m totally, adamantly against apartment complexes popping up here,” Kiely told the Suffolk Times.

Although this kind of messaging infuriates pro-housing advocates, the Republican’s political calculation of the electorate might be on target. Renters like animal caretaker Christina make up a small percentage of voters in Kiely’s district, where he and Democrat Tommy John Schiavone face off today to succeed longtime Democratic incumbent Fred Thiele in a mostly red district.

Win or lose, Kiely’s anti-development campaign is one reason it’s hard to reform housing policy in New York so people who cannot afford $1 million homes can find a place to live on the North Fork, let alone the pricier South Fork.

Kiely knows it’s easier to scare voters with terms like “overdevelopment” and “sprawl”; he knows it’s simpler to say your opponent wants to “get rid of single-family zoning” than it is to explain on a mailer or lawn sign why allowing some apartments and accessory dwelling units is a good idea. (Kiely actually supports ADUs, but conveniently omits that position from his campaign materials.)

Housing experts say decisions on housing policy should be made at the state level rather than at the local level, because localities will often veto development.

The result is expensive housing across most of Long Island, so young adults have to live with their parents or move away, and businesses house staff in illegal dwellings, if they can even find wage workers to hire.

New York’s housing crisis (and the country’s) is decades in the making and solving it will take just as long. Moving decisions to the state level might not help much: State legislators helped kill Hochul’s plan. Donald Trump did the same to a Biden plan for more apartments in the suburbs.

If Stephen Kiely and others like him win seats Tuesday, Albany will become even more hostile to housing.

Where that leaves Christina and her well-behaved yellow lab is anyone’s guess.

Update: Schiavone defeated Kiely, 56 percent to 44 percent, according to unofficial results.