New Rochelle City Council Adopts Sweeping New Downtown Overlay Zone (DOZ) Amendments Further Advancing the Region’s Most Ambitious Redevelopment Effort
Updates including new waterfront overlay zone, 3,000 more units of housing, new open space, and community benefits pave the way for City to continue its historic transformation in line with its vision for equity, inclusion and sustainability
New Rochelle, NY – The City of New Rochelle today announced that the City Council unanimously approved significant advancements to its historic redevelopment, enabling the continuation of a bold transformation that began six years ago. The City’s visionary efforts to adopt a form-based zoning code providing certainty for developers already have helped it attract $2.2 billion in private investment, resulting in the development of 9.2 million square feet of space downtown. To date New Rochelle has approved 32 development projects, with six already completed and 14 under construction.
Positioning the City to emerge from the pandemic poised for continued growth, the plan will bolster its economic resiliency, promote stronger social connectivity within the downtown and create an important connection between the development of the waterfront and the transit-oriented development sites downtown.
The amendments include a new waterfront overlay zone, adding a seventh district to the six zones created in 2015; 3,000 more units of housing, including 700 along the waterfront; and additions to the Community Bonus Benefits Program (CBB) to allow builders additional stories in exchange for providing community benefits such as green infrastructure, sustainability and climate resiliency improvements, which now can be outside the specific overlay zones. Increased opportunities for local Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE) and more affordable housing for local residents are also incorporated in the new development plan.
“New Rochelle has enjoyed unprecedented economic growth, even through the difficult challenges of the pandemic, and now has an exciting opportunity to build on and expand our prior success,” said New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson. “These forward-looking updates to our downtown plan lean heavily into environmental and social governance, thereby ensuring that growth in our community is sustainable, equitable, and inclusive, while also creating a powerful magnet for ESG investment.”
The zoning updates follow an extensive community engagement campaign over the last year by the City and a generic environmental review, which sought to increase connectivity between downtown – where the bulk of the development has been focused – the waterfront and other areas of the City to increase access to recreational and green space. With demand for the City’s residential properties strong, the amendments also will formalize a shift of some mixed-use spaces to residential use to reflect the current hybrid live/work environment and significant ongoing leasing activity.
In 2015, the City Council approved a game-changing redevelopment that stimulated billions of dollars in economic investment in New Rochelle. The form-based zoning code adopted ensured that as long as developers adhered to specific criteria within each overlay zone, they could expect project approval within 90 days, faster than almost any other municipality in the region. In the last six years working closely with its master developer RXR Realty, the City has approved 32 projects, bringing 6,865 new residential units, of which 3,600 are completed or under construction, resulting in 9.2 million square feet of mixed-use development space.
“These zoning updates reflect the feedback we’ve heard from residents and stakeholders alike, that as we look to the future, we must increase opportunities to connect all the diverse offerings New Rochelle provides, bolster important environmental improvements such as green and sustainable infrastructure, provide more opportunities for local and minority owned businesses, and create more affordable housing for our residents,” said New Rochelle Department of Development Interim Commissioner Kathleen Gill. “We sincerely thank the City Council for its close partnership on the redevelopment, along with our residents for their ongoing engagement and perspectives to ensure we captured a range of voices in working toward building a more equitable and sustainable City.”
“The unanimous approval of this zoning update is an example of what can be accomplished when a City works with the community and stakeholders alike to reach a common goal. I look forward to the implementation of this new zoning resulting in the continued unprecedented growth and investment in our downtown area,” said New Rochelle City Manager Charles B. Strome III.
The City of New Rochelle has been working with developers to cultivate additional MWBE opportunities throughout the 30+ projects and to promote and increase accessibility to affordable housing opportunities for residents. Those efforts include eliminating the provision that allowed developers to build off-site affordable units to keep such units on-site, increasing the fee for developers who opt out of affordable housing requirements and establishing a sliding-scale credit system to increase accessibility to new housing.
For more information on the City of New Rochelle, upcoming projects and other initiatives, please visit www.ideallynewrochelle.com.