Hochul's NY Agenda: Gas Ban for New Buildings, Zoning Overrides

Gov. Kathy Hochul laid out her vision for housing in the Empire State yesterday, including giving the state the authority to override local zoning laws to approve affordable housing projects and what would be the first state ban on gas hookups in new buildings in the nation.

In her second State of the State address, the NY governor proposed to phase in a ban on natural gas heating and gas-powered appliances in new buildings, beginning in 2025 for smaller buildings and 2028 for larger buildings. Under the proposal, NY also would prohibit the sale of any new fossil-fuel heating systems starting in 2030.

Hochul’s plan comes two years after NYC mandated a ban on gas hookups in new buildings of less than seven-stories beginning at the end of this year, and in larger new buildings in 2027.

The proposed ban on new gas-heated appliances in NY comes the same week the head of the federal Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) revealed that the agency is considering a national ban on new gas stoves, citing harmful emissions to residents who use them, an estimated 40% of the households in the US.

To expand affordable housing in NY, Hochul unveiled a plan to require municipalities in the state to set three-year targets for increasing their housing. Failure to meet the goals would trigger a fast-track state approval process—applicable to projects with more than 20 units—that would override local zoning restrictions.

A similar process now is under way in California, where Bay Area cities have been scrambling to meet the Golden State’s Jan. 31 mandate to specify their plans to develop new housing that meets targets set by the state. New Jersey and Massachusetts also have initiated state overrides, known as “builder’s remedies.”

Hochul also said she would ask the NY state legislature to revive the 421a tax break for affordable housing that was permitted to expire last June. A frenzy of building starts—limited to pouring foundations—took place in May and June as developers rushed to meet a June 30 deadline for starting projects that still qualified them for the last 421a incentives.

Hochul’s action to start cutting off the gas lines to new buildings sends a strong signal to building owners currently relying on gas-powered furnaces and appliances in their buildings to prepare now for a fully decarbonized grid in the Empire State, which is investing heavily in a decade-long expansion of hydropower, offshore wind, and renewable energy storage facilities.

The growing call for an end to gas-powered furnaces and appliances is the result not just of an increasingly vigorous effort to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions—as the impact of the unfolding catastrophe of climate change becomes increasingly evident—but of a new and urgent effort to reduce methane as well as carbon emissions.

The methane piped into our buildings, homes and appliances as natural gas—which now fuels nearly 40% of US power plants—is 30% more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

[Methane doesn’t linger in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, but until we cut off the emissions—from fracking it out of the ground as well as using it as a primary fuel—that doesn’t matter. We can’t do anything about the millions of tons of methane being released from melting tundra and, eventually, warming oceans.].

CPSC’s announcement it is considering banning new gas stoves provoked an angry response from several members of Congress yesterday, including a representative from Alabama who denounced the consumer safety commission as “unelected bureaucrats” who are exceeding their authority.

In the Senate, Sen. Joe Manchin of coal-producing West Virginia called the proposed ban on gas stoves “a recipe for disaster.”

“The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner,” Manchin declared.

Fact check: sounds like a recipe for marshmallows roasted over hot charcoal, which is dessert, not dinner, although maybe not on Sen. Manchin’s houseboat, which is docked in the Potomac River.