A conversation with Annemarie Gray about a change in state law that could unlock gobs of housing
In the latest episode of After Hours with Jamie Rubin, Annemarie Gray of Open New York joins the podcast to discuss the growing momentum behind housing reform in New York. Fresh off a major victory in reforming the City Charter, Gray breaks down the push for State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) reform — a 50-year-old law originally designed to protect the environment that she argues is now being weaponized to block green, transit-oriented development.
From the shifting political landscape under Mayor Zohran Mamdani to the "invisible" regulatory hurdles adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a single apartment, Gray explains why modernizing these rules is essential for an "all-of-the-above" approach to affordability.
You can listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Jamie Rubin: You're listening to After Hours with Jamie Rubin, a Vital City podcast. I'm Jamie Rubin. Hey, Liz.
Liz Glazer: Hey, Jamie. How are you?
Jamie Rubin: I'm well. How are you?
Liz Glazer: It's finally springtime.
Jamie Rubin: It is springtime. All the dirty snow, the disgusting snow has melted.
This episode is largely an interview with our friend Annemarie Gray about an important piece of state legislation in the state budget that will hopefully be passed sometime in the very beginning of April. We're sitting here on March 22nd, 2026 – so fairly soon.
I wanted to start by talking about something that you manifested into being — the Mayor's Office of Community Safety. You manifested it by thinking hard, writing a piece in Vital City about the Mayor's public safety policy, and then by having started Vital City, which led to an episode on January 28th called “Reducing Crime by Improving Neighborhoods: An Interview with Renita Francois.” Obviously, without any of those things, there would be no Office of Community Safety headed by Renita Francois. Do you want to link all those things together and demonstrate your immense power?
Liz Glazer: Hardly. First of all, Renita Francois was announced last week as the first-ever Deputy Mayor for Community Safety. If people haven't taken a look at her extraordinary announcement — her really moving remarks and the way she fielded questions — they should, because it will show in a snapshot what an extraordinary leader and thinker she is.
I had the good fortune to work with her for seven or eight years when she headed up the Office of Neighborhood Safety in the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. She created a civilian approach to what safety should look like — led by residents, participated in by 20 city agencies and nonprofits, trying to figure out in sharp ways what makes neighborhoods safe. That included everything from summer youth employment to good lighting to community centers — all separate from simply calling in the police.
This new office is an expression of something that was a centerpiece of Mamdani's campaign promises around public safety: a new look at how safety could be secured through civilian power and civic power, not simply the police.
Jamie Rubin: During the campaign, most people would have thought he meant that instead of police being sent out for certain emergency calls, other kinds of personnel would be sent out — mental health professionals, substance abuse counselors — instead of police. So is that what we have now under Renita, or has it morphed into something different?
Liz Glazer: The devil's in the details. There were and continue to be very prominent incidents of people who were shot by police after their families called for mental health assistance on this mayor's watch. There's been a lot of focus on whether we can send civilians instead of police. The Mayor has doubled down on B-HEARD, which are civilian teams that respond to calls about someone in mental distress. But B-HEARD has been pretty universally acknowledged as not being particularly effective — there's a comptroller's report and other assessments. The idea is: how could it be amplified?
The problem is that this simplifies an incredibly hard issue. It's not just a question of who responds. It's a question of what happens after. Many of the outreach teams act in a moment of crisis, but there isn't a sense of: we are going to stabilize this person with housing and services, we are going to be with this person like glue, because these may be lifelong issues that come and go. That hasn't been our approach.
If the task before Renita is to figure that out, that's enormous. It encompasses many different agencies. She's also responsible for hate crimes, gun violence, and a whole array of other issues. She's an enormously talented person, but operationally, it's a lot.
Jamie Rubin: It's a steep hill. But my take is: as hard as the problem is, they've decided on a leader, which is always very important, and they picked somebody who is not going to ignore those details. You're not going to see something new and perfect spring up overnight until Renita says it's ready. That's a good thing for people who care about the government working well, as opposed to living under a government of bumper stickers.
Liz Glazer: Leadership is key. They couldn't have picked a better person who understands the complexity and has the skill to pull together all those strings to make something real. It's a great outcome, and she'll be terrific at it.
Jamie Rubin: Annemarie has been on before. Last year she came on to talk about the Charter Review Commission and specifically the ballot questions that passed — largely due to her activity — which led to some really important zoning reforms. The Governor has proposed a significant revision to the state's environmental laws, also in the furtherance of building more housing faster. Annemarie is at the forefront of the campaign to help the Governor pass that law as part of the budget.
I have my own views about all this because I live in the housing world a bit more than you do. What was your impression of what Annemarie said?
Liz Glazer: The first thing that struck me is, as Hemingway said about bankruptcy, it happens gradually then all of a sudden. For so many years, people have been fighting about these issues. Then, suddenly, we have these referendums that pass: Hochul getting behind the SEQRA stuff, and then Mamdani, on the very last day before the election, supporting it. I wondered: how much of this is a sea change? How important is it?
Jamie Rubin: Every piece of it is important, but the housing crisis is like anything else — we didn't get here quickly. We got here after decades of different decisions. SEQRA reform will help address one piece, but nothing is going to get resolved overnight.
The difference between this and zoning reform is that SEQRA revisions generally apply to people who have already secured the ability to build something and are now waiting for environmental clearance. It's less controversial — more about speeding things up and costing less money than about overriding local zoning, which is viewed as much more existential. That's why the governor has failed the last few times she's tried to do zoning reform through state legislation. It's a fundamentally harder thing to do.
Liz Glazer: When I hear Annemarie and you talk about this, I think about the “abundance book” and other cities. How applicable is what's happening in New York? Are we further behind, or are we going to be a light unto the nations?
Jamie Rubin: We're late to the game in some ways. The charter review was a big deal — no city has done something like what we did. But California has beaten us in some ways. Gavin Newsom got a similar environmental regulation reform passed in his last legislative session. We're getting there in our New York-y kind of way.
A quick update on where we are politically: the SEQRA reform is part of the Governor's budget for this year. It's generally thought likely to pass, maybe with some changes negotiated at the table. The single biggest issue is that the environmental community has looked at this and said: it's not a terrible idea to update 50-year-old laws to fit the ability to build more homes in a crisis, but we have some issues with how you're going about it.
My assessment is that it should work out. The Governor will back off on some of what she's proposing in the climate laws. The environmental community will get behind most of what she wants to do with SEQRA, and the budget will emerge with two key — by the way, non-financial — items that are basically both good for the state. But we won't know until the puff of smoke goes up and we have a new budget.
Liz Glazer: It's like a choose your own adventure in alphabet soup.
Jamie Rubin: Exactly. So we'll now listen to Annemarie Gray and hope you enjoy it.
Jamie Rubin: Annemarie, welcome back to the show.
Annemarie Gray: Thanks, Jamie, for having me.
Jamie Rubin: A lot has happened since you were last on — in the world and to you personally. What's the most important thing that's happened?
Annemarie Gray: Is the answer supposed to be that I had a baby?
Jamie Rubin: Yes, absolutely.
Annemarie Gray: I had a baby! We have a new New Yorker – very relevant to all the talk about childcare and affording healthcare and affording to live in New York City while trying to grow a family here. That's been very exciting. And simultaneously, the city and the state are really making good headway on building more housing. It's just been an exciting time all around.
Jamie Rubin: Second to your personal news, the other big thing was the Charter Review Commission's housing questions. Talk about what was at stake and what happened.
Annemarie Gray: About a year ago, the last administration formed a Charter Revision Commission charged with taking a hard look at the barriers the Charter creates for building more housing of all types, which we know is the core root cause of the housing affordability crisis.
They came out with four really strong questions — Questions Two through Five — all about fast-tracking city-financed deeply affordable housing, fast-tracking modest housing infrastructure proposals, creating a housing appeals board as a backstop to hyper-local vetoes of housing projects for no good reason, and replacing outdated paper maps with a digital map system.
We were really involved in shaping those questions. Then we launched a campaign called "Yes on Affordable Housing" — an independent coalition – but Open New York really made it happen. They passed on election night, and it's a really big deal. It's a national example. New York City is finally tackling some of the worst barriers upholding exclusionary zoning practices. We've already seen a couple of projects go through the process in ways they wouldn't have before.
Jamie Rubin: And to put a fine point on it, they passed overwhelmingly — without the candidate who ultimately became mayor saying anything supportive until the very final day. The tailwinds were the crisis and your campaign, basically.
Annemarie Gray: They won 50 out of 65 Assembly districts — 77 percent. They won in every district that went for Mamdani and some that went for Cuomo. Even in places where you'd expect less support, like homeowner-heavy southeast Queens, there was really strong performance.
And you're already seeing Mamdani prioritize the affordability crisis, lean into the need to build more housing, and start using these new tools. It's really exciting.
Jamie Rubin: Give me an example. What specifically has happened in the first six or eight weeks of this administration?
Annemarie Gray: Two weeks ago, I was with the administration as they announced the very first ULURP project — that's Question Three, the expedited review for modest housing proposals. They announced the first project in the Bronx, a deeply affordable housing project that HPD is doing, and it's going to move months faster.
Then we saw Council Member Vicki Paladino, who has been one of the staunchest opponents to new housing — she was outwardly opposed during City of Yes and the ballot measures — put out a long video explaining how she didn't like the measures but now that they were law, she couldn't stop them. She's wrestling with the politics: is it better to vote yes so she has some say, knowing that if she doesn't, it goes to the appeals board? And then the project got approved.
You're watching in real time how the political calculus shifted from a default hyper-local veto for bad-faith reasons to okay, everyone needs to build housing. Places across the country are watching us. We really started to curb member deference in the absolute worst cases, and we're just starting to see the impact.
SEQRA Reform: What It Is and Why It Matters
Jamie Rubin: With that major victory under your belt, and having tried a couple times at the state level to pass legislation with similar regulatory impacts — cracking down on the most egregious obstructionism to new housing — there's new momentum. Scroll forward to the Governor's State of the State address in January. What did she announce?
Annemarie Gray: She announces reforms to SEQRA — the State Environmental Quality Review Act. It's a signature part of her State of the State speech and her executive budget, targeting an April 1 deadline. Very short turnaround. And she was extremely supportive of the ballot questions well in advance of Election Day.
Hochul has clearly been talking about housing for a couple of years now, and it's a big theme with governors across the country. Some of the other things she's tried haven't gotten full traction because the state grants authority to municipalities to control their own zoning, which has a really big impact on what actually gets built. But there are steps that can pave the way for bigger reforms, and one of them doesn't get a lot of coverage because it's invisible — but it really matters.
Building new homes requires going through thousands and thousands of pages of paperwork. You'd think from the name that the analysis has a huge amount to do with the environment and making sure there aren't bad impacts to climate. That is where this idea started about 50 years ago, but that's really not what SEQRA is actually measuring now.
It was written in the '70s, designed to stop environmentally destructive actions like new coal-fired power plants or highways bulldozing neighborhoods. But 50 years later, that same law is ironically preventing green infrastructure projects. It's preventing infill housing right next to transit. It's blocking exactly the climate action that makes sense for the 21st century because it's never been modernized.
Jamie Rubin: How does a state environmental quality act actually block climate adaptation?
Annemarie Gray: To build anything, you need to go through this required state process. If you're building a single-family home in a sprawling suburb, you're not required to go through anything like this, but you are for a small apartment building. Off the bat, it doesn't make sense how you're setting requirements.
It takes a lot of time, and time is money. It's become so broad that you're measuring things like shadow impacts, or what traffic signal changes might be needed 10 years down the road because new people will live there. It's designed against the status quo and slows down the process. And because you have thousands of pages of paperwork, anyone with money to hire a lawyer figures out some way to stop a project.
We did a huge amount of research on projects delayed by SEQRA. One example is 250 Water Street in the South Street Seaport — housing on a parking lot in a historic district. A lawsuit argued the developer's environmental analysis was insufficient, and the project got stalled. There was also a lawsuit against City of Yes arguing the city hadn't properly studied the environmental impacts of rooftop solar panels. That is ridiculous. Our environmental laws are being abused to stop solar panels. Something has gone really wrong.
This is a world where wealthy people figure out a way to stop housing in their district, and SEQRA gets weaponized.
Jamie Rubin: The Citizens Budget Commission has done research showing that housing projects can cost as much as $82,000 more per unit due to unnecessary regulatory costs. When the average cost of a new unit in the city is $500,000 to $750,000, that's as much as 10 percent of the cost.
Annemarie Gray: And this does not suddenly open up development on greenfields or take away water quality protections — all of that is still in place. You're just modernizing it so it cannot be used for the worst reasons and making projects that obviously make sense move faster.
Jamie Rubin: So the Governor's proposal is framed as exemptions, right? Types of projects exempt from SEQRA review, new housing below a certain size, projects on previously disturbed sites where review has already happened or is unnecessary.
Annemarie Gray: It's mainly doing two things. One: exempting whole categories of projects — but remember, those projects still have to go through any discretionary process required by the local government, like zoning, site planning, and permitting. They just get exempted from full environmental review.
Two: for larger projects that don't meet the exemption criteria, they still go through existing environmental review but with timelines to ensure local governments don't delay forever. It's like a clock — analogous to what the ballot questions did with timelines on review.
Something to keep in mind: in many cases, these are projects that were already approved by local governments. They went through community planning. They went through discretionary reviews. They were already approved. And then someone decides they didn't like the outcome, hires a lawyer, sues, and it gets stalled. It's not even reflecting the democratic process as it currently exists.
That said, as a state, there are a lot of ways we need to keep building on this momentum and adding accountability for places that just aren't building homes. SEQRA is definitely not the end, but it's a really good baseline — something smart, something obvious — and then we keep tackling the affordability crisis year after year.
The Environmental Community and the Politics of Reform
Jamie Rubin: Even on its face, this appears to be somewhat limiting of landmark state environmental review legislation. You'd probably say it's trying to bring the original purpose back into focus and take away the extraneous stuff that's been abused. But it sounds like the Governor has to side with either housing or the environmental groups, and the proposal has fallen on the side of housing developers. How do you deal with that?
Annemarie Gray: This is making it easier to build an energy-efficient home near the subway where people don't need a car. This is making it easier to build solar panels. This is making it easier to build infill housing on a parking lot so that homes don't get built as new sprawl development instead.
A lot of environmental groups see this, and the goals are really aligned. Our current land use and environmental review processes are actually exacerbating sprawl. The whole conversation has come a long way from a '70s-era environmental framework to 2026 climate realities. What does our land use need to look like to reduce emissions? Dense development done in smart ways is a conservation strategy. That's how you make sure you're actually preserving land.
You're seeing some opposition from groups fearing they'll lose a tool they've used for a long time. But we launched a coalition alongside RPA that now has 35 to 40 groups, including environmental groups. I'm having multiple conversations today with people working on climate issues alongside fair housing and planning groups. The battle lines are just not that clear.
Something we haven't mentioned: a version of environmental reform passed in the Senate last year. The Governor isn't alone on this. That bill was by Senator Rachel May, who comes from an environmental background. The bill was called the Affordable Housing and Sprawl Prevention Act. People are thinking carefully about how to be clear about intentions. Mayor Mamdani has been a staunch supporter, which has helped the conversation in New York City a lot.
Abundance, Good Faith, and Climate Alignment
Jamie Rubin: Part of the problem is that it's been a really rough couple of years for the environmental community. It didn't start with the election of Donald Trump, but that was a watershed moment. Terrible things have happened, including basically the destruction of the EPA's key regulatory functions. The landmark state legislature – CLCPA that passed a couple of years ago – has been painfully slow to implement. And then you and I have talked about abundance a lot. You could see this coming for environmental regulation a mile away. I didn't love some of the dialogue around abundance a couple of years ago. There are good-faith abundance-people and less good-faith abundance-people, and on the less good-faith side, they've been targeting environmental regulation for some time. Is that fair?
Annemarie Gray: I spend my days working on housing issues, so I'm not the expert on everything happening writ large. It is a very scary time for people who care about climate — and frankly for all of us. I stay up at night worried about that, but it's not what I focus on day to day.
Jamie Rubin: But those are your allies.
Annemarie Gray: The fear — what those groups are actually wrestling with in terms of their policy priorities — is real and very scary and probably extremely frustrating. To your point about abundance, I honestly don't use that word myself because it means really different things to different people.
The way I see it is that dense housing in smart ways is a climate solution. And a lot of the folks thinking about this day to day — there's real good faith there. I actually think there's a huge amount of alignment.
How Mayor Mamdani Is Doing on Housing
Jamie Rubin: I'm going to take the last few minutes to brag on you. Anybody who's been watching the Mayor over the last two months has noticed that, going back to his transition team, your face keeps popping up in close proximity to the Mayor. You're the closest thing we have to a housing celebrity. I mentioned the transition because you were on the Mayor's housing transition team — you were the chair.
Annemarie Gray: There wasn't a chair. I just spoke.
Jamie Rubin: Every time they wanted to talk about the transition, you were one of the people who spoke, so I'm going to call you the chair. We don't expect you to be unbiased, but you call them as you see them. How's the Mayor doing on housing?
Annemarie Gray: In a world where there's a lot to be dire about, I'm feeling really hopeful and excited. This mayor, from partway through his campaign, really recognized the role of building more housing — something he changed his mind on. You saw him lean into the ballot measures. You saw him use language that Open New York has been at the forefront of for years — that tenant protections and building new homes are not in conflict. And they can't be, because having buy-in for a neighborhood to grow means people have to not feel like they're getting displaced. That's really real.
Him leaning into that and running on the four-bill agenda was really huge. I've been impressed with the appointments. Layla Bozorg is someone I've worked with for a long time and think extremely highly of — a really smart pick to blend these priorities, rooted in fair housing and a truly progressive lane for building more housing as part of an all-of-the-above approach where every neighborhood has to be part of the solution. We have to think about tenant protections and the role of the public sector and public excellence. She's a really good person to run that.
Her chief of staff, Genevieve Michael, is a political genius and a smart person for that position. Good for New York, but a bit of a loss for me — Andrew Fine, my number two, our policy director and chief of staff, is now on her team. Great for New York.
Some of their first announcements are about how they're going to use the ballot measures. They're just getting started. I'm excited to see their full housing plan. There are still announcements and appointments to be made. But in general, it's an exciting moment to see a new administration embrace this momentum that cuts across different types of politics in a way where people are really serious about life getting better.
Lightning Round: Sunnyside Yards, ADUs, and Pinball
Jamie Rubin: Before we go, quick lightning round. Sunnyside Yards.
Annemarie Gray: A smart, insanely complicated generational project that they should keep looking at — but knowing it's really complicated, really expensive, and should be one of a wide range of things they pursue. Leaning into the fact that building new homes is central to the affordability agenda and going to the president to talk about it — that's excellent. But it shouldn't be the only thing they're working on.
Jamie Rubin: Agreed. It's not going to be. ADUs — now legalized via City of Yes, you're starting to see the first projects come about, a couple of little companies popping up.
Annemarie Gray: Like in California! It's so cool. The ballot measures do this too — we've lost this whole industry of small-scale builders because it was illegal. ADUs are a great entry-level path for small home builders. It's a much more accessible way to enter the industry than the massive developer world that usually runs things in New York. In California and other states, you've really seen small business growth when these things get legalized. Super cool.
Jamie Rubin: We're all about middle-class creation here. That's great. Last one: best place to take a five-month-old on a rainy Saturday in Brooklyn.
Annemarie Gray: You're going to love this answer. There's a pinball museum that opened in my neighborhood.
Jamie Rubin: Is it in Red Hook?
Annemarie Gray: Yeah! It's really chill, really kid-friendly. It's free. The lights and sounds — the baby was really mesmerized. It's somewhere inside that's not a bar, with a lot to look at that's not screens. It's wholesome — old pinball machines from the '50s.
Jamie Rubin: I'm delighted that you're not taking your baby to a bar. You get a lot of points for that. Annemarie, it's so good to talk to you. We'll talk again after SEQRA passes.
Annemarie Gray: Sounds great. Thanks, Jamie.
Jamie Rubin: Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode of After Hours with Jamie Rubin.
