On March 20, 2023, Westchester County Legislator Damon Maher attended a meeting of New Rochelle Against Racism (New RoAR) to speak and answer questions about his candidacy for Mayor of New Rochelle.  The conversation lasted about an hour and was recorded and transcribed.  New RoAR News is publishing excerpts from this meeting as a weekly series over the next several weeks.  This is Part 2. Part 1 can be found here. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

New RoAR also invited New Rochelle Council Member Yadira Ramos-Herbert, who is also running for Mayor, for a similar discussion.  Despite several efforts, Council Member Ramos-Herbert has not scheduled such a meeting.

The Democratic primary vote will take place on June 27, with early voting from June 17 through June 25.

Q:  What is your assessment of the city’s downtown development strategy? As mayor, would you change it, and if so, how?

DM:  Obviously, I think it’s a pretty good thing because I moved into one of the apartments.  I’m in one of the buildings that the County put money into to have 25% of the units affordable at deeper affordability rates than the city’s required 10% at 80% of AMI [Area Median Income].  I think it’s going very well.  My wife, Debbie, and I thought there’d be more empty nesters like us and there aren’t that many, it’s mostly younger people.

Informally, in my building, it seems like the population is about half Black, about 20% Hispanic, and some Asian. A lot of people work in the hospitals in the North Bronx, doctors, nurses, physician assistants, people working in housekeeping and cafeteria, the full range.  We like the lifestyle and hope it continues to develop that urban vibe with authentic ethnic restaurants and markets, things like that.  I don’t see evidence of it impacting the surrounding community in terms of higher rents or things like that.  

I think there is room to build more. My building is over 90% rented in less than a year.  I think there are a lot of people who are attracted to the close, walkable train station and other means of mass transit, and the kind of amenities you get around the walkability of a city. 

I think we have more leverage to assert ourselves in terms of the things we want back from the developers in exchange for their right to build here and get tax breaks and other incentives.  That’s a major difference I have with the current administration.  They’re afraid to say there should be a certain number of union jobs, or we shouldn’t require any other community benefits because then the development will all stop. I disagree and don’t think that’s true. 

I think there’s a lot of appeal to New Rochelle, versus White Plains for example.  We have the waterfront as a view and to go and enjoy, and we have developed it well.  We’re a shorter commute into the city and we’re developing more of those transportation nodes that make us very attractive.  The question is the “coolness” of New Rochelle’s downtown.  If you talk about Peekskill or Tarrytown, they have some live entertainment and areas where there are small shops that are colorful and give you a little bit more of a community feel.  

I’m one of those progressives who truly believes that the law of supply and demand has not been repealed, and certainly not with respect to housing.  If we build more, we can bring the prices down, and that’s my secret hope — that they’ll overbuild and that will bring the prices down.   The non-affordable units in the new buildings are pretty expensive.  We have a shortage of housing throughout Westchester County, and I have been working in the county legislature to have some of the towns and villages expand their housing horizons as well.

Q:  The city has created downtown overlay zone #8, in the historically Black areas around Memorial Highway and Lincoln Ave. This is supposed to make it easier for developers.  Based on the fact that the Black community has been systematically and historically destroyed, what would you suggest be done to prevent that sort of pillaging from happening again?

DM: My number one consideration is for the residents who have historically lived in and around Lincoln Avenue. If you’re going to build something new, don’t displace the people who are already there. Give folks from the community the opportunity to move in there.  This was the plan for the Housing Authority’s Bracey Houses before the City dismissed four members of the Housing Authority Board. Their plan included equity for residents, to the extent that they’d be integrated in with market rate apartments and some retail on the same campus so that the “profit” would benefit the tenants in money or reduced rent, with some ownership. This was supported by studies from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and Fordham Law School’s Lincoln Square Legal Services Clinic. 

One thing that’s missing downtown is a grocery store, a major supermarket.  I think the city must commit itself to supporting basics like that, and not have a supermarket become an Audi dealership like they did in New Roc.  That’s another thing that has me shaking my head every time I think about it. The downtown is supposed to be a walkable, environmentally friendly, socially responsible area.  They let the supermarket leave and brought in a luxury car dealership. The question for me is, how do you build a complete community?

Q:  Why are people poor in New Rochelle?

DM:  Because we don’t have the political will to do what we can do to abolish poverty.  Why are people poor?  We often say, the system is working the way it was meant to. Black and brown people especially have historically been kept out of the housing ownership market, where most families accumulate wealth and pass it from generation to generation.  It’s a curable problem, but not one that there is the political will to solve. We have enough wealth in the country to do so.  But you can’t mention anything, even among Democrats, with regard to equitable tax or housing policy. 

Q:  What do you imagine as mayor that you could do about that?

DM:  First, affirmative action in hiring, making sure we recruit, hire and promote with an anti-racist lens.  And work on these housing issues.  We can’t say that housing discrimination and segregation are something that happened 50, 60, 70 years ago. It is  something that still has an impact.  My son is kind of a GIF expert, overlays data on maps and shows how in various cities, including New Rochelle, how little folks of color have moved outside the districts that were Redlined in the middle of the last century . 

Governor Hochul is onto what a lot of other states are already doing, overriding zoning rules, which tend to be exclusive.  It’s something that’s benefited certain people over time. Fair and equitable may work out.  It’s not necessarily a zero sum game. 

You know, privileged people have to understand that we’re in such a position, not necessarily justly, and that we have to do something to correct it.  The big thing would be a change in tax policy, which we can’t do much about at the local level, except with a bully pulpit. As an elected official I can say this is what people want in our city.