As developer Louis Cappelli weighs into the New Rochelle Mayoral race, concerns about his motives grow. On Friday, June 9, the Westchester County Democratic Committee (WCDC) revealed that Cappelli and four of his construction company executives contributed $100,000 to the WCDC on May 12. Six days later, the WCDC contributed $60,000 to the campaign of New Rochelle Mayoral Candidate Yadira Ramos-Herbert.

Cappelli has a number of projects completed and/or in the works in New Rochelle–at 50 LeCount Place, 339 and 327 Huguenot Street, and 247 and 251 North Avenue–and has received millions of dollars in tax breaks from the city’s Industrial Development Agency. He is also RXR’s General Contractor for Tower B at Church and Division Streets.

While in the past Cappelli hired union labor for construction projects in New Rochelle, including Trump Tower and New Roc City, his current projects are “open shop” and largely done using non-union labor. 

The City recently agreed to pay Cappelli $382,550 to lease space in his Trump Tower at 173 Huguenot St. and gave him a $750,000 credit for build-out of a vocational training facility there to prepare residents for non-union construction jobs. 

Non-union workers have no voice at work and are less likely to receive fair wages, health and retirement benefits, paid sick time and vacation days, advance notice of work schedules, and protection against safety violations. 

Cappelli’s non-union job training partnership with the City raises serious concerns.  In 2016, the City Council unanimously adopted the Economic Opportunity and Nondiscrimination Policy to ensure that New Rochelle residents, especially those seeking apprenticeship training and careers in construction, would benefit from the construction boom. The policy requires that for every 20,000 hours of construction work, an apprentice enrolled in a New York State Department of Labor certified program would do 1,000 hours.

The policy states:

“New Apprentice Employment Requirements for Prime Contractors. For each 20,000 construction work hours performed by a Prime Contractor and its subcontractors of any tier, such Prime Contractor and/its subcontractors of any tier shall act as a Subscribing Employer for at least one individual newly enrolled as an apprentice in an apprenticeship program registered with the New York State Department of Labor, and employ such new apprentice for an aggregate total of at least one thousand 1,000 hours of work on the prime contract or subcontracts.”

New Rochelle Forward, the workforce development program to be built and housed at 173 Huguenot Street, is not registered as an apprenticeship program with the New York State Department of Labor.

Reports from Anchin Associates, the company hired by the City to monitor the developers’ compliance with the Policy, show that for 2020 and 2021 the City failed miserably in delivering the good jobs promised to the community. Anchin’s report for 2022 has yet to be made public.

“I question whether it is appropriate for the City of New Rochelle to invest in vocational training that will likely lead to poverty wage, dangerous, dead end jobs while hundreds of skilled union members and those who stand to gain family supporting careers in construction are left sitting on the sidelines,” says Jeff Loughlin, President of the Westchester Building Trades Council.

The $750,000 credit for the build-out of a non-union training facility is the amount Cappelli is required to put into the Community Benefit Bonus (CBB) Fund in order to build several more high floors of “market rate” housing at 327 Huguenot Street. This is another case, like Anderson Plaza, where the City is providing an indirect subsidy to a developer. 

City residents are the losers because the CBB Fund will not receive the $750,000 that it should get from 327 Huguenot St., which could be put to use building a real benefit for the community. 

There’s the further irony that Cappelli gets a huge credit for fitting out retail space in Trump Plaza, which may still be owned in part by Trump, and the rents paid by the City will probably go to cover the annual fees that are paid to Trump for his original sponsorship of Trump Plaza and for keeping his name on the building.