New Rochelle’s plan to tackle its housing crisis by speeding up project approvals, a strategy that created 4,500 homes in six years, has been recognized by a national housing affordability group.
The city shared an Ivory Prize for its zoning and permitting innovations with Chattanooga, Tennessee in the Utah-based Ivory Innovation’s policy category.
A decade ago, New Rochelle embraced a streamlined process that reduced approval timelines to 90 days for housing projects that had already cleared building codes.
The effort not only generated more affordable housing but stabilized rents and established New Rochelle as one of the state’s fastest growing cities, according to Ivory.
Median rents rose by 1.6% since 2020 compared to 25% in surrounding communities. And between 2020 and 2023, rents fell by around 2%, far better than the national average.
Thousands of new apartments have been built downtown, about 10% considered affordable and 70% at the area’s median income.
“We’ve approached the housing crisis with urgency and intention — demonstrating that forward-looking tools can increase supply, stabilize costs, and strengthen communities…,” Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert said. “This recognition affirms that progress, and reinforces our commitment to deepening affordability and expanding pathways to homeownership.”
How New Rochelle’s housing revival unfolded
The revival began more than a decade ago when the city recognized its downtown area was an underutilized asset, according to Adam Salgado, the city’s development commissioner. Storefronts were vacant and parking lots empty since there were few places to go in a downtown once considered a model for the suburban downtown.
“Over time, given some of the retail trends, the development of the I-95 corridor and some of the transportation infrastructure that was built up around this area, New Rochelle’s downtown sort of declined,” Salgado said.
New Rochelle, with a population of around 85,000, is Westchester County’s second largest city behind Yonkers.
Attempts at kickstarting a revival failed to gain momentum until a strategy emerged in 2013 and 2014.
“The leadership at the time did a stock take and said ‘you know we have not really produced any meaningful development in New Rochelle, what can we do?’,” Salgado said.
They enlisted master developer RXR to come up with a plan.
Central to that was a form-based code, which gave builders “an architectural recipe” for what a successful building should look like, Salgado said.
“We understand that people don’t really live in buildings, they live in neighborhoods,” Salgado said. “The model is kind of your traditional European downtown. I won’t say where cars are in the hierarchy, but I will say that pedestrians are the first priority.”
Fees paid by developers went to some of the capital investments the community wanted, including the revival of a 10,000-square foot movie theater and outdoor space used for jazz concerts that might soon include a farmer’s market.
What comes next for New Rochelle?
The state took notice. In February, Gov. Kathy Hochul toured Stella, one of the new housing developments downtown, as she touted her “Let Them Build” proposal to streamline approvals for lower cost housing. The same day she announced the state would kick in some $16 million in funding for the LINC (Linking Innovation, Nature and Community), a project to reconnect a historically African-American neighborhood with the rest of the city.
The city has plans to add thousands more housing units in the coming years, with a goal of 11,000.
This month the city announced a downpayment assistance program that would cover nearly 20% of costs for first-time homebuyers. It’s open to full-time workers, business owners and former residents of New Rochelle.
“We want to bring back some of the folks that have left New Rochelle that are part of the history, that have left because of affordability and all kinds of concerns,” Salgado said. “We want to invite them back. We want to honor our roots.”
Thomas C. Zambito covers energy, transportation and economic growth for the USA TODAY Network’s New York State team. He’s won dozens of state and national writing awards from the Associated Press, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Deadline Club and others during a decades-long career that’s included stops at the New York Daily News, The Star-Ledger of Newark and The Record of Hackensack. He can be reached at tzambito@lohud.com
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New Rochelle’s housing revival plan wins national Ivory Prize
Reporting by Thomas C. Zambito, New York State Team / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
