By Walter Pryce
This is an opinion column. It reflects the views of the writer.
On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul put six acres of a state psychiatric campus in Utica up for redevelopment as housing. “We are committed to giving state-owned properties a new life as we address New York’s housing needs while creating new opportunities for communities to thrive,” Ms. Hochul said in the announcement.
Buffalo has a bill that would do the same thing on a smaller scale, and it has been sitting in Albany since June.
As The Chronicle reported this week, S9538-A/A10733-A would let the state sell about 1.62 acres of the former Buffalo Psychiatric Center grounds, including a vacant 1904 dormitory, to the nonprofit Richardson Center Corporation. The Senate passed it June 2. The Assembly passed it June 4. According to the Senate’s bill page, it has not been delivered to the governor. The last action listed is “returned to senate.”
That is nearly five months of nothing for a bill both houses already approved. The Senate should send it to the governor now, and Ms. Hochul should sign it.
A small bill with a clear purpose
The bill is short and plain. It authorizes the commissioner of general services, with the consent of the mental health commissioner, to convey the land “for fair-market value.” The sponsors’ memo says the parcels “are no longer needed for state operations,” and that without legislative approval “the transfer of these parcels cannot proceed.” It lists the fiscal impact as “none.”
The land must be used “exclusively” for a mixed-use campus for community benefit, “including affordable housing.” If that use ever stops, the property goes back to the state. The corporation has one year to apply.
The dormitory, built for male nurses at the old Buffalo State Asylum, has been empty since the 1990s, Buffalo Toronto Public Media reported in June. The people who want to save it have said what they would do with it.
“Ideally we have residential spaces up top. We’ve talked about artist space, perhaps on the ground level, or some sort of commercial, maybe residency space,” Paris Roselli, president of the Richardson Center Corporation, told the station. “The building’s bones are really good, which is great.”
Assemblyman Jon Rivera, the Buffalo Democrat who carried the bill with Sen. April Baskin, put the case simply. “I would much rather invest the money in a building like this than build some other cookie-cutter, un-unique, kind of bland structure,” he said.
Bernice Radle, executive director of Preservation Buffalo Niagara, agreed. “It’s absolutely worth saving. These buildings are really important,” she said, adding that “historic tourism is one of the biggest economic drivers to our region, and this just adds to that.”
Why the delay matters
Albany’s habit of holding passed bills is not illegal. Lawmakers decide when to send bills to the governor, usually in consultation with her office, and June bills often arrive in batches through the fall and into December. Once a bill is delivered after the session ends, the governor has 30 days to act. A bill that is never delivered by the end of the two-year session dies.
But every month a vacant building stands empty through another Buffalo winter is a month of damage someone will pay to fix. Historic rehabilitation runs on financing, and Mr. Rivera has pointed to historic tax credits as part of the plan. Lenders and investors are unlikely to commit to a building the buyer doesn’t yet have the legal right to buy.
The delay also sits awkwardly with the governor’s own housing message. Her office says its $500 million Redevelopment of Underused Sites for Housing program, known as NY-RUSH, aims to produce up to 15,000 homes on underused state property. Her housing commissioner, RuthAnne Visnauskas, called the Utica project “a smart way to address the housing crisis while at the same time injecting new life into an underutilized state asset.” The same description fits the Buffalo parcels, and the Buffalo bill already has a buyer lined up.
The best argument against, and why it falls short
The strongest objection is that the bill hands state land to one chosen nonprofit instead of opening it to competing bids, the way the state is doing in Utica. That is a fair concern. Competitive processes protect taxpayers and keep insiders from getting sweetheart deals.
But this bill has guardrails a no-bid giveaway would not. The sale must be at fair-market value. The use is limited by law, and the land reverts to the state if the promise isn’t kept. The buyer is not a stranger. It already runs the restored Richardson Olmsted Campus next door, including the Richardson Hotel. Splitting a 1.62-acre corner of a unified historic campus off to a separate developer could make the whole site harder to manage, not easier.
The answer to the taxpayer concern is transparency, not delay. When the Office of General Services sets the price, it should publish the appraisal so the public can see the state got full value.
What should happen now
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Sen. Baskin should deliver S9538-A to the governor this fall rather than letting it slide to the end-of-year rush. Ms. Hochul should sign it without chapter amendments that weaken the reversion clause or the affordable housing language. The Office of General Services should then complete the sale quickly and post the appraisal online.
And the Legislature should look at the larger habit. Bills that pass both houses in June should not routinely wait until Christmas. A rule requiring delivery within a set time, with exceptions for bills the governor asks to review longer, would make Albany more accountable for the work it says it has already finished.
If you live in Buffalo, call Sen. Baskin’s office and the governor’s office this week and ask one question: when will S9538-A be delivered and signed? A building that has stood empty for decades should not have to wait on paperwork much longer.
Featured image: The Richardson Olmsted Campus in Buffalo. Photo by w_lemay via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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