NEW ROCHELLE, NY (May 10, 2026) — The last time the city held a public hearing on proposed changes to its Downtown Overlay Zone, not a single resident showed up to speak. That was September 2023. Those amendments — which effectively doubled the number of residential units authorized for downtown development — passed without public comment.
Tuesday night was different.
Twenty-three speakers addressed the New Rochelle City Council at a joint public hearing on a proposed new round of DOZ amendments, which would add another 2,800 residential units to a downtown that already has more than 5,000 apartments completed or under construction, with another 5,000 approved but not yet built. The turnout, which organizers described as the largest public opposition the DOZ has ever faced, drew union laborers, neighborhood association representatives, longtime homeowners, renters, and at least one congressional candidate.
The amendments, which accompany a Supplemental Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement required under state environmental law, would also trade roughly 990,000 square feet of commercial space for the additional residential units — continuing a shift that, according to data compiled in a report submitted to the City by the Sutton Manor Association, has seen commercial and institutional land uses in the DOZ’s Theoretical Development Scenario fall 62 percent since 2015 while residential units have risen 143 percent.
The mood in the council chamber was frustrated but organized. Speakers came prepared with data, specific demands, and pointed questions for elected officials.
“Development should not just be about buildings,” said Dominic Cassinelli Jr., vice president of Teamsters Local 456 and recording secretary of the Westchester-Putnam Building and Construction Trades Council, who appeared with a contingent of union members. “It should be about building careers. And that’s not what’s happening right now.”
Cassinelli cited 2025 data from the city’s First Source Referral Centre showing 434 residents placed into jobs through the program at an average wage of $21.53 per hour — with only 168 of those in construction, some paid as little as $20 to $25 an hour. The city’s own environmental impact statement projects average construction wages of $101,230 a year, or $48 an hour. Michael Yellen, speaking for the New Rochelle Alliance for Justice, called that discrepancy “poverty wages” and said it “calls into question the other data in the construction section.”
Paul Martin, president of the Sutton Manor Association, told the council the city’s fiscal analysis was similarly disconnected from reality. The SDGEIS projects $20 million in additional annual tax revenue at full build-out — but explicitly excludes the impact of PILOT tax abatements, which every downtown developer has received, typically for 15 to 20 years. Applying the city’s own standard PILOT schedule, Martin said, reduces that figure to roughly $11.65 million — and that is before accounting for revenue lost from properties demolished to make way for new development.
The proposed amendments drew criticism across a broad spectrum of concerns. John Delfs, speaking for the Residence Park Neighbourhood Association, called for green space, wider sidewalks, and dedicated parking funding before any new units are approved. Shawn Wayawotzki, co-chair of NewRo Enough is Enough — a group that says it represents more than 600 residents — questioned why a 2024 mechanism allowing residential units to be transferred between zones was enacted without a public hearing or any SEQRA review. Serge Becker noted that DOZ 2 alone now contains 6,400 authorized units — more than the entire original 2015 plan envisioned for all zones combined.
Matthew Rooney, of Decatur Road, distilled the evening’s central question. “Who wants this?” he asked the council. “Do you have your constituents knocking down your door telling you to do this? It doesn’t look like it. So the only reasonable conclusion any of us can come to is that it’s private interests that are driving these changes.”
Several speakers drew a direct line between the pace of development and the erosion of public trust. Marion Whittaker, a member of Enough is Enough, noted that the city’s own 2021 traffic study rated key downtown intersections at Level of Service E and F — the lowest grades — and that development proceeded anyway. Lisa Burton told the council it had a rare opportunity to move from “asking, incentivizing, suggesting” to making enforceable change. Miriam Decime called for the overlay zone to be eliminated entirely and for individual projects to require full city council approval.
The hearing closed with the written comment period remaining open through April 24. Under state environmental law, the city must respond in writing to every substantive comment received before it can adopt a Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement and move forward with the amendments.
Written comments submitted to the city are the subject of a separate report.
This article was prepared with the assistance of AI tools under the direction and editing of Robert Cox.
Have information about this story? Email robertcox@talkofthesound.com (preferred) or contact via WhatsApp: +353 089 972 0669.
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