To Address The Housing Crisis, Governor Hochul Must Stop Another Unfunded Mandate
New York State is about to impose an unnecessary – and unfunded – mandate on every future new home buyer from Buffalo to Long Island. And because this mandate will be implemented by unelected bureaucrats, everyday New Yorkers and even the state legislature are powerless to stop it. Governor Kathy Hochul must act immediately to prevent it from happening – and protect New Yorkers.
Building houses that turn into family homes is at the very core of my family. My father George Sr. started as a carpenter who valued an honest hard day of work, and turned that ethos into a successful, third-generation home building company. And in more than a decade serving in the state legislature, I always made affordability a top priority, striving to support legislation that protected the American Dream.
Unfortunately today, many New Yorkers are struggling to realize that dream. The last thing Albany should be doing is making it even more difficult to afford a new home.
But a recent draft regulation from a little-known and unelected state board could add up to $30,000 to the cost of building a new house. By the end of this week, the Code Council inside New York’s Department of State could finalize new regulations that will require the installation of automatic fire sprinklers in new one and two-family homes less than three stories.
On the surface, this may sound reasonable, and something I would absolutely support. But once you learn the details, it becomes clear this is government overreach at its worst at a time when we can least afford it.
Governor Hochul should reconsider this proposal for a multitude of reasons. First, the state has considered this mandate in the past, but instead chose a better way. New Yorkers have made it clear they want the power to make these decisions themselves. And finally, we need to be taking steps to make owning a home more affordable in New York, not less.
I would never oppose making one of the houses my family builds safer. But I also want New Yorkers to be able to afford their own home, and they should be given the freedom to make an informed decision on whether they’d like to install a sprinkler system. In fact, that is precisely what the law says now.
Since 2014 a New York State law has required all homebuilders to provide buyers with information regarding the installation and benefits of sprinkler systems as well as the cost estimate for their home. At that point, consumers make their own choice about whether to include those systems in their home. Since 2018, Amedore Homes has built over 400 new homes in the state of New York and not a single buyer has chosen to install a sprinkler system. It seems to me that homebuyers are speaking loud and clear about their opinion on fire sprinklers in their new homes.
Choice is what New Yorkers want. Recent polling from the Siena Research Institute, commissioned by NYSAR, showed that nearly 3 out of 4 New Yorkers outside of New York City want to be able to make this decision for themselves, rather than having the state mandate it.
Under current law, that choice is also left to local control, and indeed, many local municipalities are already able to adopt their own fire codes in new construction. But it’s notable that local governments can consider a variety of factors specific to their residents before making this decision, including administrative costs and water source and supply.
That local consideration – whether from a town or an individual home buyer – is thrown out the window with a blanket mandate from Albany, and the cost impacts could be devastating.
For example, in many rural areas in upstate New York, homes are not connected to a municipal water source, so sprinkler systems would require additional equipment like water pumps and storage tanks to provide the necessary volume and pressure.
This is all being done with the backdrop of rising housing costs across the state. A 2024 study by the New York State Builders Association showed the cost of single-family homes in New York has risen by more than 41 percent between 2019 and 2023, with mortgage rates increasing by 200 percent since 2020. And with the median household income at $82,095 (2023) and the average cost of a new home exceeding $600,000, more than 75 percent of families simply cannot afford a new home.
So what can we do instead? First off, Governor Hochul needs to step in and direct the Building Code Council – whose members she appointed – to immediately scrap this proposal. Next, the governor and legislature can get behind and pass laws that incentivize safety measures in new construction – including a bill sponsored by my former colleague Leroy Comrie that would provide a tax credit for the installation of fire sprinklers (S.1843) – as well as properly funding and prioritizing infrastructure improvements in communities throughout the state.
Governor Hochul has put affordable housing at the forefront of her state agenda, correctly identifying a crisis that is pushing New Yorkers out of state. But I am urging her to look inside her own administration, and demand they do their part as well. Last month’s elections showed that New Yorkers – and Americans across the country – are desperate for government to take action to protect their quality of life and make their cost of living more affordable, not less. In New York, we can start listening to them now.
George Amedore Jr. proudly served for more than a decade as a member of both the New York State Assembly and Senate, and is currently the President of Amedore Group, Inc.
