Rochester is seeing something of a boom in affordable housing construction, with last week’s official opening of Alta Vista just north of downtown being the latest example.
The state tallies 4,700 units built, renovated, under construction or in the city’s pipeline since 2022 – leading the Finger Lakes region, and any other part of the state outside of New York City.
The high number is the result of an influx in state funding, adding to local support, unleashing the area’s unusually deep bench of developers well-versed in these types of projects. Developers like Ibero, Home Leasing, CDS Housing and Conifer, Depaul, Landsman, Pathstone, Providence, Cornerstone. The list goes on.
“We have the talent and the capability to do it,” said Erik Frisch, the city’s deputy commissioner for neighborhood and business development. “So getting access to the dollars means you're starting to see so many new projects coming online.”
Yet some might question: Why isn't there more? And what does it say about the larger effort of solving the housing crisis if a community with such capacity to address the problem still struggles?
"I've been doing this work for a while," said RuthAnne Visnauskas, commissioner and CEO of the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, "and I would say that, you know, issues around availability of affordable housing, or issues around homelessness, you know, in some ways, are the same as they were when I started 25 years ago.
"I don't think it's sort of for a lack of trying that people feel like there are still challenges here," she continued. "I think that it just has to be a sustained effort to keep going. And I think, I think that's true in Long Island and Westchester, New York City, and it's true in Buffalo and Rochester and Syracuse, that we need to keep these resources flowing."
Before Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2024 Housing Compact — promising a doubling of housing construction, and the delivery of 800,000 new units over the coming decade — there was a focus on affordable housing. That 2022 commitment of $25 billion to build or renovate 100,000 units in five years’ time is the source of much, if not all, of the assistance for this latest wave of local projects.
“Bringing renewed life to our downtowns and preserving history while creating safe, stable, affordable housing are among my administration’s top priorities,” Hochul said in a statement marking the opening of Alta Vista at St. Joseph’s Park.
Visnauskas was in town last week attending the project's ceremonial ribbon-cutting.
The $35 million, six-story, all-electric building on Franklin Street provides 76 apartments for income-eligible households. Fourteen units are reserved for people who have struggled with homelessness because of domestic violence, substance abuse or mental health issues.
"It's always complicated,” said Eugenio Marlin, president and CEO of Ibero-American Development Corp., the project’s developer. “If you notice the number of different partners that we need to get a project like this going ... from the state, from the city, foundations. You know, that's what it takes to be able to afford to develop something like this.”
Ibero partnered with Edgemere Development, tapping more than a half-dozen funding sources outside of conventional financing and equity. YWCA of Rochester and Monroe County is providing on-site services.
Elsewhere in the city, there’s Harpers Corner at Main and Clinton. Gateway Apartments recently got underway a few doors down. And Center City Courtyard opened this past summer a few blocks farther west. There’s Gardner’s Lofts in the city’s northwest, and Beechwood Family Apartments, Tailor Square, True North Apartments, First Genesis Homes in the northeast.
Taken together, those add another 600 units to the mix in new construction. Most of the state assistance has gone to renovating existing housing, or so-called preservation efforts, including the 153-unit Los Flamboyanes high-rise off North Clinton Avenue.
“We do more in Rochester than we do in some other upstate cities,” Visnauskas said. “There are pockets of capacity around the state, but it is not everywhere,” she continued. “And this work is hard. ... But I do think Rochester has a unique set of organizations that are very high capacity.”
And that resonates beyond the Rochester's borders.
“Rochester exports this talent statewide,” said Frisch, with the city, “and our developers, our development consultants, are active across the state.”
Increasingly, though, officials are talking about the need to do more at higher price points.
"There are challenges to finance, workforce and market-rate housing in our market,” Frisch said. “It's not just a Rochester issue. It's an issue statewide and beyond.”
He explained: "If you're not delivering housing at all income points where it's needed, people get stuck where they are, can't then move on to the next unit. That's then keeping somebody else from moving into that (unit), and it kind of cascades, right? So we know we need to be delivering more.”
Visnauskas echoed that need.
“It took us a while to get into this sort of (housing) shortage, and it's going to take us a while to get out of it,” she said. “So we have to just have sort of sustained effort, I think, over a decade, to see some relief for people.”
