Will Labor and Affordable Housing Advocates Get Seats at the Table?

The Mayor and City Council Members who won with significant support from local unions and promises to improve housing opportunities for working people will have their first opportunity to deliver for their constituents with the opening of two seats on the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) at the end of February.

Since the 2015 downtown rezoning by a previous City Council, the seven-member IDA Board has granted tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks to developers to fuel redevelopment.  While real estate interests are well represented on the current IDA, the voices of organized labor and residents who are burdened by the high cost of housing are absent.  The City Council now has an opportunity to reshape the IDA to include representation from these two important segments of the community.

The City Council appoints IDA Board members to staggered three-year terms.  The terms of former City Council member Ivar Hyden and former School Board member Amy Moselhi will expire on February 28, 2024. 

Remaining Board members include Garrett Thelander, a Senior Vice President at M&T Bank; Robert Balachandran, President of BellRow Title Agency; Howard Greenberg, President of Howard Properties (a commercial real estate brokerage); Felim O’Malley, Executive Vice-President of AWISCO (a welding supplies business), and City Manager Kathleen Gill, who serves as the IDA Chair. Commissioner of Development and Deputy City Manager Adam Salgado serves as the IDA’s Executive Director.

Rich McSpedon, Business Representative for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 who sits on the Westchester County IDA Board, says, “I bring a unique perspective to the Westchester County IDA Board.  I represent the building trades and other unions and, more importantly, I am a voice for the community. I am able to push for local hire and direct entry opportunities into the building trades so residents have the opportunity to gain family-supporting careers in construction through the investment of public money, in the form of tax breaks, in private development.”

Developer Louis Cappelli, who has built the biggest projects in New Rochelle, is currently planning a megaproject, The District Galleria, around the corner from his White Plains headquarters. “White Plains is part of the Westchester IDA,” McSpedon explains. “I anticipate a productive dialogue with Cappelli regarding local labor policy if and when that project comes before the IDA.”

“It is essential to have a variety of voices sitting on IDAs, including those who support affordable housing and from labor, among others,” says Port Chester Village Trustee Joan Grangenois-Thomas, a long-time affordable housing advocate. “These are the communities that get impacted by the decisions that IDAs make. They should have a seat at the table to create possibilities and to have input on any decisions that the IDA makes.”

Grangenois-Thomas recently led a three-part webinar, “Westchester’s Housing Crisis,” exploring the history of housing in Westchester, discussing solutions and creating an action agenda to bring fair and affordable housing to everyone in the County.

The New Rochelle IDA has used its power to invest taxpayer dollars, in the form of tax breaks, to private developers to build thousands of market-rate apartments that are unaffordable to most New Rochelle residents. Housing advocates are hopeful that a reshaped IDA will incentivize more housing with deeper affordability.

Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress is a not-for-profit agency that advises local governments, housing agencies, and developers on affordable housing strategies.  In its most recent report on the need for more affordable housing in New Rochelle in October 2020, Patterns for Progress found that, “In New Rochelle there are approximately 9,080 renter households that earn less than or equal to 80% of Westchester County Area Median Income (AMI) which represents 64% of all renter households in New Rochelle. Among these renter households that earn less than or equal to 80% AMI, 76% are cost burdened or severely cost burdened, and 45% are severely cost burdened.”

According to Pattern for Progress, housing is defined as “affordable”if it costs less than 30% of household income.  Families that spend over 30%  are referred to as “cost burdened,” and those that spend over 50% as “severely cost burdened.” 

New Rochelle has also failed miserably when it comes to the City and IDA’s promise of creating good, family-supporting jobs for residents through the downtown redevelopment.

In their most recent report, Anchin, the firm hired by the city to report on how developers are complying with the city’s Economic Opportunity and Nondiscrimination Policy, found that local residents were doing a mere 6% of the construction work downtown. And, equally, if not more importantly, developers and general contractors were meeting only 25% of the City’s goals for the employment of new apprentices in the redevelopment. These apprenticeships would provide the pathway for New Rochelle residents to gain family-supporting careers in the union construction trades.

The New Rochelle IDA has failed to adequately address the city’s needs for affordable housing and good, sustainable employment opportunities.  The  appointment of labor and affordable housing advocates to the IDA Board would position this key agency to better address these important community needs.