New York’s gas stove ban is burning developers!

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman put the heat on Gov. Kathy Hochul Wednesday— slamming a state law banning natural gas as a “green energy scam” that’s thwarting construction and real estate development.

“We are ruining our economic development in this state,” Blakeman said at a press conference in Brooklyn. “We are creating the housing shortage under the lack of leadership of Kathy Hochul, with the acquiescence of [Mayor] Zohran Mamdani.

“It’s costing residents of New York State billions of dollars,” he added.

Blakeman rallied against the aggressive environmental law, which bans installing gas stoves and heating in newly built homes, at a construction site in Carroll Gardens that he said was stalled out by the law.

The press conference, attended by real estate leaders and elected officials, came after a federal appeals court upheld the ban two weeks ago.

Blakeman called the gas ban — which applies to new buildings up to seven stories tall beginning this year, and taller buildings by 2029 — “a national embarrassment” that’s made building new homes in the Empire State nearly impossible.

The would-be housing complex in Carrol Gardens, planned developer Humberto Lopes, is an example of the law failing, he said.

“[The housing] was supposed to have gas as part of his electricity and his energy to the building,” Blakeman said of the project. “Now, the city has taken and thrown away his plans, and now, requiring him to go back to the drawing board and make it all electric. It’s dumb. It’s not gonna happen throughout the state. It’s a pipe dream.

“This is a green energy scam. But the fact of the matter is, we do not have enough energy to support going low electric,” he added.

“People don’t want all electric homes. They don’t want whole electric cars, and if they want them, that’s fine. It can always be an option. But you shouldn’t make people have to do something that they don’t want.”

Blakeman said the gas ban — which was enacted in 2023 but has faced several delays — drives up housing prices and puts New York at the bottom of the country in real estate development.

“It’s a national embarrassment, and New York State, the once great Empire State, is now at the bottom of economic development, and it’s because of policies like this.

“We have the gas,” he said. “We are sitting on one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world here in New York. And we’re not extracting it.”

New York enacted the nation’s first statewide ban on natural gas in most new construction in May 2023 but it has faced legal battles.

“People with electric bills, that bill is gonna be $500 a month every month for the whole entire year, “ Lopes said at the press conference.

“Mind you, I’m building a building. I not living in there. The tenant is gonna have this bill, just so expensive,” he said.

Supporters of the law have said banning  natural gas hookups reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions and improve indoor air quality. 

A federal appeals court upheld the legislation, dubbed the All Electric Buildings Act, on June 30 after a series of delays.