Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Second Round of Mid-Hudson Momentum Fund Awards to Accelerate Housing Development Across the Region

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the second round of awards under the Mid-Hudson Momentum Fund, providing over $60 million to support ten transformative projects across the Mid-Hudson region. These grants will leverage $627 million in total public-private investment towards critical infrastructure improvements and mixed-use projects that will enable significant new housing development across Orange, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester counties. The projects range from new mixed-use and mixed-income housing developments to essential water treatment facilities and sewer infrastructure that together will unlock over 8,000 new units of housing, over 2,000 of which will be affordable.

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, everyone. What a fabulous day here in the great city of Yonkers. I will take note, the hometown of our great leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who has done an extraordinary job — the first woman of color to lead a body of our Legislature, and she's done a miraculous job with the challenges she faces. I want to especially acknowledge her as we're here today.

Also acknowledge our Congressman, George Latimer, who knows this county better than anyone. So grateful to have his voice of reason in Washington — more critical now than ever, so appreciate your partnership and how you're fighting so hard, not just for your district, but the entire State of New York. Ladies and gentlemen, George Latimer.

Our Mayor, Mike Spano, who presides over all this great development and many wonderful things that have happened over the years that he's served, and I want to thank him for having the vision to bring projects, like Lionsgate, and how exciting this is to have here. Let's give a round applause to our Mayor, Mike Spano.

Our senators are in the house: Senator Shelley Moore has joined us, Shelley; Senator Nathalia Fernandez has joined us; Assemblymember MaryJane Shimsky as well — let's give a round of applause to them.

And from my administration, Hope Knight, who is behind all the great projects that we love to talk about from every corner of the state — our CEO and President of Empire State Development, Hope Knight.

From my point of view, the Mid-Hudson area has been stealing the hearts of people for generations. It has breathtaking views, charming towns, a historic river that is just part of the narrative about New York; what makes us so great? This rich history also attracts the smartest people, the most engaged people.

The home of FDR is in this region and it's something that we treasure, we're proud of, but it's also — despite its great past — it also has an incredible present and future. And we are, right now, a hotbed of growth and innovation. And right here at iPark Hudson, we're seeing it firsthand. And this is built by our friend Joe Cotter, and we miss him, we miss Joe.

This campus, other campuses — we are here for many of the events, but what an imprint that man had on this community and beyond. But also just the idea of transforming long vacant sites and turning them into cutting edge technology centers and engines for economic growth. Joe's passing was a great loss for us. His business partner Lynn is with us here. I want to thank her for all she has done to carry on; let’s give a round of applause to Liz — we honored Joe.

And also just think about what's happening nowhere else in the country. You're seeing this explosive growth; IBM investing $20 billion — now that's a headline any day of the week in the Mid-Hudson region to deepen its quantum computing, and semiconductor projects and Regeneron in the middle of a $2 billion expansion up in Tarrytown. It's all happening in this one region and I want to always say thank you to those companies who could be elsewhere — and they make this place their home, but not just their home, but they're expanding and attracting talent from around the country.

And as a result of all these great things happening, and people discovering the charm and the wonderful quality of life here, we've seen a great growth in population in this area — and that's a good dynamic, I like it, but in this area, the population has grown over 30,000 in just a few years, and a lot of it happened since the pandemic.

People left the city; they discovered not too far away was this beautiful place they could make their home. But it also comes with growing pains, right?

The infrastructure's feeling the pressure and as we attract more industries, that means more workers. It also means we need more housing. You've heard me talk about this for three and a half years now, and, like I said back in my State of the State in January, my mission as Governor is to ensure that every New Yorker can live, and work and thrive in the community they want to call home, but they have to have a home — and for too many, that just feels so far out of reach.

Whether it's that person starting out, trying to find that affordable apartment, or a couple wants to downsize, find a place to live, a townhouse, or apartment, a condo, or anyone who wants to move up the chain. I always knew that you could judge a person's success by where they're living. My parents used to live in a trailer park, then a little, tiny two-bedroom flat next to the steel plant where I was born — my one-year-old brother. And then they got a little Cape Cod, and then they got a little bigger space and I lived in the attic with two brothers and no heat, air conditioning, but we got very close — at least we had an attic, right?

It was progress and over time as my father became more successful building on a college degree, he was able to acquire, their homes got bigger. And I still believe that is part of the American dream that people have: you start out small, you struggle and you end up at a place that you can live comfortably. But housing is now the number one source of stress for our families and individuals, so what we have to do is show some momentum, and that's why two years ago, I launched the Mid-Hudson Momentum Fund: $150 million dedicated to simply this region to help you meet that demand, and build more housing, and have the supportive infrastructure that is essential and provide homeless for people of all income levels, all.

I make sure we do what is necessary and last year, we announced the first round of awards — proud to say because I'm always saying how are they going? Are they moving along? Three are already underway and we're going to keep the momentum moving ahead. The Golden Hill mixed-use development in Kingston, 164 units of affordable housing plus a daycare center — very important to me — is on track to be completed this fall; that's great progress.

The foundations have been laid for the Barrel Factory Apartments, a hundred unit mixed-use development also in Kingston; and we broke ground on The Opal 115 of development that'll create over 315 units in Mount Vernon.

The Mid-Hudson Fund is also a key part of our $750 million, and thank you to the legislators and our Leader for adding more money to this. This is our Pro-Housing Communities fund, an essential component of our landmark housing legislation from last year. And if you've not heard about it, I'm going to tell you about it.

Municipalities that earn the designation of being a Pro-Housing Community — and it's not that hard to do — you pass a resolution in your City Council or Legislature, and commit to growth targets, and we'll help you get there, we'll help you navigate. And to qualify, you apply, you're certified.

We have over 300 communities that are doing it right now. It's funny, we started out with 20 and I made the observation that, “Boy, $650 million is a lot of money to spend in 20 communities. They're going to do just fine.” Word got out and now we have 300 and even more, but there's only four 14 right here in Westchester. I think we can do better. Come on, it's not that hard. You want to be part of all the carrots that we put on the table.

It's now $750 million and if you're willing to say “yes” to housing and “yes” to a better future, you know the money's available. This is money for downtown revitalization and Main Street programs, restore New York; infrastructure programs that we are now setting aside.

So I understand the challenges that localities have. I understand sewers and potholes more than most since I spent 14 years in local government. And for someone, when I was in local government to say, “You could have $10 million for your sewer system, or to build housing or to work on a downtown,” I would've died and went to heaven.

I mean that never happened with Albany — my 14 years in local government — but having come to this position with that perspective of the power that we can have to help be a catalyst for development in our communities, I knew at Albany could do, we could do more — and we are.

So I know how transformative these grants can be — that's why we have more grants. And today, I am proud to announce 10 visionary projects that were selected to receive $60 million in the second round of a Mid-Hudson Momentum Fund, including, Leader, $11 million worth of projects for two projects right here in Yonkers.

All told, this is a number you're going to want to repeat over and over, it'll unlock 8,000 units of housing with 2,000 of them being affordable — 8,000 new homes for people right here in this region; and it'll leverage $627 million of public and private investment, and help us shore up the critical infrastructure that our communities depend upon. So I will turn it over to Hope Knight to continue through the projects, but I do want to say this: this is an opportunity that we have to seize — whether it's providing the sewer grants to some of our great communities across the river, whether it's helping be a starting point for these houses, I want people to not be afraid of building houses.

I want you to break down that fear because there's one reason why people leave our state — I'll be honest, two reasons — some go to Texas and Florida, I don't know; maybe they like their governors better, I have no idea why. When you look at the top five destinations where New Yorkers who do leave our state go, three of them are our neighbors: Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey. They have the same weather, same taxes, nice governors, but it's not New York.

They're going there because they had the ambition and the guts to build more housing. I see it all the time. We have held ourselves back, living in the past, holding tightly close to what we have and not opening it up to others — a fear of multi-family housing. Oh my gosh, what are you afraid of? Everybody deserves a good home, and we have the capacity, the space, the investments to make it happen.

We just have to get people to change their mind about the value of this so young couples starting out can raise their kids next to Grandma and Grandpa; babysitters can be free if you do it right. That's why I moved home from Washington. My parents are free babysitters; I know what I'm talking about.

So I just want to encourage everybody to not miss this moment. I will support it. I'll continue putting money behind it, but I need people to be open-minded. Break down the fear, break down the barriers and do what is necessary.

The other area where we're being smart is building housing around transit hubs. This is so genius in its simplicity. I just came in from the City — took 40 minutes, Metro-North, very nice, made a lot of friends. Not everybody likes to talk in the morning, but that's okay, I do. But we are so blessed to have this. Other parts of our state and the country are envious of how accessible a great city with tens of thousands of jobs is where people from the city want to come up here and take the jobs here, and we have this available.

Why aren't we building housing right where those stations are? Have a little place to have your coffee in the morning. Upstairs, you have the housing mixed, it's all affordable, but also market rate all mixed together — you can't tell the difference. Throw a swimming pool on the top if you want. I've been to facilities like this, so I'm talking about building a whole new quality of life, but communities have to be open to this, so I want to make sure that we continue focusing on our infrastructure. I'm working on making the trips to the city even shorter, but also charting a path forward, allowing the transformation that is desperately wanting to occur — let it happen.

And I'll give you a sample of some of those 10 great projects. I'll have Hope Knight come up and then we'll be willing to, and happy to introduce our next speaker, the Leader of the New York State Senate, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, but Hope Knight, come on up.