Housing, energy costs at top of Long Island Association's 2026 agenda

The Long Island Association, an advocacy group representing thousands of local businesses, said it wants to ensure Long Islanders have access to cheaper housing and electricity, two top issues central to the Island's affordability crisis.

The group is also pushing for faster permitting processes for real estate developers, among its top lobbying priorities for the year as it focuses on issues of affordability, said Matt Cohen, president and CEO.

The nonprofit plans to release its list of more than 60 priorities on Tuesday. Newsday publisher Debby Krenek is a board member.

Long Island has long struggled with affordability, with limited housing stock driving median home prices to record levels in recent years, expensive electricity costs brought on by an aging infrastructure, a property tax system that makes homeownership more difficult and regulations that make building costly and time-consuming, local business advocates say.

Cohen said in a phone interview Monday that the group, along with government and business officials on Long Island, have "to really figure out new, creative and innovative solutions" to the cost-of-living issues that burden Nassau and Suffolk's economies. 

The LIA said it has secured more than $7.5 billion in economic development investments for the Island over the past decade, lobbied for funding and approval of the LIRR Third Track and pushed for funding for regional infrastructure projects, including improvements to Long Island MacArthur Airport.

Cohen, who became head of the Melville-based organization in 2021, said affordability has been top of mind for years. He said LIA will follow up with local officials to push its policy goals.

To that end, the group plans to oppose tax increases and what Cohen called "outdated" regulations, like a proposed extension of a 7.25% state corporate tax rate and the use of environmental impact studies on already developed lands. It also supports efforts that increase housing supply like reducing the time for building permits at the start of a project and is lobbying for energy production, including pushing for investment in offshore wind projects and the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, which is projected to increase gas capacity by 13%.

Some business groups on the Island agree with the LIA's top policy initiatives.

“We think it’s important not to raise taxes,” said Kyle Strober, executive director for the Association for a Better Long Island, a Hauppauge-based developer's group. “In order to maintain a level of affordability, you don’t want the highest taxpayers living in New York leaving for other parts of the country.”

Strober said his group, like the LIA, opposes an extension of a corporate tax rate hike proposed in Gov. Kathy Hochul's upcoming budget.

“When the top 1% leave, the burden is pushed on the middle class, which is Long Island,” he said.

The Long Island Builders Institute, too, agreed with the LIA’s legislative agenda and supports efforts to increase housing stock while streamlining the building permit process.

In Suffolk County, the median home sale price hit $700,000 in December, while the median price in Nassau hit $835,000, according to OneKey MLS, the multiple listing service covering Long Island. 

“Housing continues to be an issue and area that needs focus,” Michael Florio, chief executive of the Long Island Builders Institute, said. “It’s not just affordable housing or rental or ownership; it’s everything. We have to have an ‘all of the above housing approach.'”