A coveted half-acre East End plot will be sold for development into affordable housing, after City Council voted to approve the controversial transfer Tuesday night.
The Rochester City Council has approved the sale of a half-acre plot in the East End for an affordable housing development.
The Charlotte Street site will be sold for $150,000 to the grassroots organization Hinge Neighbors. Co-led by artist Shawn Dunwoody, Hinge plans to build 11 townhouses to be sold to low-income Rochesterians, with the idea of helping families build generational wealth. Nine of the houses will include an additional dwelling that owners can rent out, creating a total of 20 units. To qualify, a buyer has to make less than 60% of area median income, or $62,340 for a family of four, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Council approved the sale by a vote of 7-2, with Councilmembers Mary Lupien and Stanley Martin voting no. The plot is in Lupien’s district.
“I’m not against this project, I think it’s an incredible project, it’s innovative, it’s new, it’s something we haven’t done before,” Lupien said. “...I just don’t want to take away this space until we give them something to replace it.”
The land had become a topic of debate in recent months, as neighbors rallied to keep the vacant lot a green space. Formerly a part of Inner Loop east, the site was originally planned to be developed into a commercial space but that project never came to fruition.
Neighbors lobbied the city to take back the property, which it did in 2023, turning the rock- and weed-filled site into a lawn, fit with benches and tables. While the site had become somewhat of an unofficial park, it was never meant to be permanent and was always slated for development.
“I appreciate the affinity for green space,” Council President Miguel Meléndez said before casting his vote Tuesday, “but I have a greater affinity for housing and access to creating generational wealth for families.”
Meléndez also noted that the area is not starved for parks and will soon see the redevelopment of nearby Anderson Park on Union Street. Anderson Park is an Olmsted Brothers designed park, which will be about double the size of the plot on Charlotte Street.
“Many of us across the entire city have to walk a short distance to green space,” Meléndez said. “We are a city with many green spaces.”
Councilmember Michael Patterson, meanwhile, had the strongest words for detractors of the project. Patterson represents the northeast district, a largely Black and low-income area of the city, and serves as chairman of Council’s Neighborhoods, Jobs, and Housing Committee.
He believed that resistance to development of the land was less about access to green space, and more about blocking low-income and Black families from moving into the East End.
“This looks like segregation to me, ladies and gentlemen,” Patterson said. “I ain’t never heard nobody vote against no housing development anywhere else in the city. But when we come to a white neighborhood, it’s, ‘Oh my goodness, let us not integrate the space.’”
