New Rochelle has kept rents down since 2020

In a region where rents have skyrocketed since 2020, New Rochelle has pulled off what most New York-area cities can’t: keeping rents virtually flat. 

While median rents in New York City and nearby New Jersey markets have jumped 25% or more in just a few years, this Westchester County commuter hub has seen only a 1.6% increase — and even posted a 2% drop from 2020 to 2023, according to Apartment List. 

The secret is a decade-long construction blitz. 

New Rochelle, a 40-minute commute from Midtown, has added more than 4,500 apartments since 2014, with another 6,500 planned — a 37% boost to its housing supply. That surge has kept competition in check, even as demand from priced-out Manhattanites grows. 

“They set the playbook, then private developers could come and play,” Scott Rechler, chief executive of RXR, the master developer behind much of the city’s new skyline, including the 28-story One Clinton Park, now 92% leased, told the Wall Street Journal. 

City leaders rewrote zoning rules, streamlined environmental reviews and guaranteed qualifying projects an approval in as little as 90 days. 

Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert says the building spree has paid off beyond rents. 

“The success of our development has allowed us to be able to invest and explore other opportunities around affordability,” she told the Journal, pointing to infrastructure repairs, food programs and homebuyer assistance funded by developer fees.

For newcomers like Aaron Thornton, who traded Manhattan’s Upper East Side for a $3,600 two-bedroom with a gym, a lounge and room for his growing family, the math was simple. 

“We couldn’t have raised or had a baby there, because there’s just no space,” he added.

Not all residents are celebrating. 

Longtime local Karen Hessel calls the changes “the pains of construction,” citing noise, closures and parking shortages. 

Others, like activist Shaun Wayawotzki, worry newcomers aren’t contributing locally.

“They work in the city, they spend their money in the city and they come back here and they sleep. They’re not part of the community.”