The New Rochelle Industrial Development Agency (IDA) voted to give a 15-year extension of tax breaks for New Rochelle Gardens at their meeting on July 30. Their unanimous vote addressed two areas where the City has come up short in the 2015 downtown rezoning, the need for more affordable housing and more parking.  

The vote came as pressure continues to mount on the IDA and the City to adopt policies to address another significant shortcoming in the downtown redevelopment: the need for family supporting jobs and careers in construction and building maintenance for New Rochelle residents. 

In exchange for tax breaks worth $1.35 million, New Rochelle Gardens owner, Harbor Group International, agreed to rent 59 units (10% of the total number of apartments) at 70% of Area Median Income, or $89,739/yr. They will also set aside 80 additional parking spaces for public use. Both the guarantee of affordable units and additional parking will run for the duration of the tax break, called a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), the end of 2049.

New Rochelle Gardens, also known as the Skyline at 40 Memorial Highway, currently enjoys a 30-year PILOT, which is set to expire in 2034.

“While New Rochelle’s development surge has brought significant private investment and housing expansion, union jobs—known for safety, training, and quality — have been largely excluded,” Aidan Lilly, a New Rochelle resident and a third year apprentice with the Carpenter’s union, said at the IDA hearing on the 30th. He continued, “Developers have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in public tax breaks and saved hundreds of millions by using non-union labor. A more equitable approach would prioritize union labor and stronger community standards in future projects,” he said.

As New RoAR News reported in June, ten years into the redevelopment of the downtown, New Rochelle continues to fail to make good on its promise of family supporting jobs for city residents and opportunities for local businesses. 

The latest data from the City’s job placement program, the First Source Referral Center, shows an average hourly wage of $20.04 for New Rochelle residents placed into jobs through the center. This wage is not enough to move someone out of poverty. 

A living wage in Westchester County is $32.60/hr. for a single person and $55.60/hr. for a single adult with one child, according to the Yale University Living Wage Calculator . 

The need for policy changes to create better employment opportunities in New Rochelle is also supported by the United Way’s most recent ALICE study showing that 44% of New Rochelle households lived below the poverty line or were the working poor, barely making ends meet. ALICE households (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) bring in less than the basic costs of housing, childcare, food, transportation, health care and technology, plus taxes. Yet because their income is above the Federal Poverty Level, they often don’t qualify for assistance , according to the United Way.

Supporters of living wage jobs and more affordable housing, at deeper affordability, are advocating for the City and IDA to require developers who seek the investment of taxpayer dollars in their projects to negotiate a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with the Building and Construction Trades Council of Westchester and Putnam Counties. That would go a long way toward meeting the goals of the Economic Opportunity and Non-Discrimination Policy adopted unanimously by both the IDA and the City.

“Requiring additional affordable housing and parking spaces from the Skyline in exchange for a 15-year PILOT is a plus,” Michael Yellin, co-chair of New Rochelle Alliance for Justice (NRAJ) told the IDA members. “Now is the time to also set enforceable labor standards that will result in family supporting careers in construction and building maintenance for New Rochelle residents,” he said. NRAJ is an alliance of faith, community, and labor groups organizing for equitable development in New Rochelle.

Several members of Enough is Enough, a grassroots group of citizens that believe the 10-year-old development plan is not delivering the benefits it promised, and are calling for the city to enact a moratorium on further downtown building approvals, also spoke at the IDA meeting. 

“After ten years of incessant building, a comprehensive assessment of all of the structural components involved in the development process is warranted, as well as a critical analysis of what constitutes affordable housing,” Enough is Enough member thandiwe Dee Watts-Jones said. She continued, “A review of the raw data of the development process can help us understand how issues of traffic congestion, and the need for more, not less parking, were not anticipated in the original planning, and to examine to what extent the developers and the communities’ interests are being served.”  

Also in attendance at the IDA meeting were union members from New Rochelle who would benefit from a PLA with the Skyline management as they invest in modernizing the common areas and providing in-unit upgrades.

Lilly, the Carpenter who spoke, is a graduate of the Pathways to Apprenticeship Program (P2A), a training program that the IDA supported. He, along with members of District Council 9 of the Painters Union, would like to work in New Rochelle but are unable to do so because of policies that support the non-union sector and the race to the bottom.

The need for IDA supported projects to produce better jobs for New Rochelle residents in the downtown redevelopment has come up at every meeting since the appointment of a member of the union building trades, Miguel Ayala, last year. July’s meeting moved the conversation about good jobs a little further forward.

“It’s a great project, we definitely need the affordable housing and the parking spaces,” Ayala said during the New Rochelle Gardens discussion. He asked, “Are you doing anything to speak to the building trades to get some of that work to be union and some of your service employees to be union on this project?”

The New Rochelle Gardens representative replied, “We are absolutely open to discussing this with you as we finalize this.”

IDA Vice Chair Shane Osinloye then asked Ayala if he wanted to facilitate that conversation and Ayala replied that he would be happy to put the owner in touch with the Westchester Building Trades.

Still, without a policy change, developers are only required to “make good faith efforts” to meet the IDA and City’s stated goals of producing good jobs for New Rochelle residents. Those advocating for family supporting careers through the IDA’s investment of the public’s tax dollars continue their call to require developers to meet employment goals, not just make good faith efforts to do so.

“Construction jobs are vital to the economic opportunities in New Rochelle,” Yellin said in his comments, “It is important that job standards not be sacrificed when awarding public subsidies. These standards must create pathways to construction careers for local residents, not just temporary poverty jobs, as is the norm here today.”

After unanimously voting to approve the 15-year extension of New Rochelle Gardens’ tax break, the IDA heard a presentation from the developers of Pratt Landing, the much anticipated $500 million development of the former City Yard at Echo Bay. It was not revealed how much they would be seeking from the public to support the project, yet, the IDA set a public hearing for Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 7:30pm at City Hall.