CRAINSNEWYORK.COM I MARCH 4, 2024
Outdoor dining steams ahead with new rules Owners worry as applications open for new sidewalk and street setups By Nick Garber
Paul Pereira, mayor of Mineola, Long Island, has long worked to welcome new residential buildings like the one shown behind him. His town recently opted into the governor’s $650 million Pro-Housing Communities Program. | BUCK ENNIS
Hochul’s housing incentive program may not lead to many more homes Towns that have signed up for it have good things to say, but advocacy groups argue the initiative won’t make a big difference in increasing the region’s supply | By Eddie Small Like many suburban officials, Paul Pereira, mayor of Mineola, a village on Long Island, was not a fan of the housing-growth mandates that Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed last year. “We were in opposition because it was a top-down approach,” he said. “It was yet another mandate without really any knowledge of the local needs.” Pereira is a much bigger fan of the governor’s Pro-Housing Communities Program, a $650 million initiative she launched over the summer that’s meant to incentivize cities and towns throughout the state to increase their housing supply. When she announced the first 20 places to receive
BY THE NUMBERS
$650M The cost of the Pro-Housing Communities Program
New York City’s outdoor dining program will take its first steps into the future this month, when the city starts allowing restaurant owners to apply for street setups governed by new, stricter rules than pandemicera regulations. But it will take time for businesses to get a handle on the complex new policies. The new program, dubbed Dining Out NYC, will allow for both sidewalk cafés and instreet tables. A product of lengthy negotiations between the restaurant industry, the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, the new rules represent a compromise between those who wanted to preserve the redtape-cutting freedom of the pandemic program and opponents who objected to the proliferation of “sheds” that led to complaints of filth and noise. Starting March 5, restaurant See DINING on Page 19
the designation in early February, Mineola was the only spot on Long Island to be included. The incentive program in many ways marks a sharp about-face for Hochul in less than a year’s time. When the Legislature pushed back on her mandates last year and offered up a similar incentive program as an alternative, Hochul rejected it outright, opting to take no housing deal at all rather than one she viewed as ineffective. “Merely providing incentives will not make the meaningful change that New Yorkers deserve,” she said at the time. See HOUSING on Page 22
88 Orchard Ave. outdoor dining shed BUCK ENNIS
VOL. 40, NO. 9 l COPYRIGHT 2024 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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POWER BREAKFAST Kathy Wylde backs calls for state to give NYC control over housing density, property tax breaks.
REAL ESTATE A seldom-used property tax break could help solve two of the city’s biggest problems.
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