More yachts than apartments

Sag Harbor, New York, has more yachts than apartments. To its credit, the local government took steps to allow one local landowner to replace a parking lot with affordable apartments intended for local service workers.

But state law is so stacked against housing that even when a locality is eager to allow new homes, it cannot necessarily do so. Residents of Sag Harbor whose anti-growth sentiments had failed to win in the normal political process instead sued over technicalities in the state environmental review, a review process written so broadly that basically any proposal can be subject to litigation if someone wants it badly enough.

Using Sag Harbor as my point of departure, I discussed new research on how New York can re-balance the checks and balances in its permitting process in a New York Daily News op-ed yesterday. Read the whole thing.