Rochester’s housing gap

Rochester is in the midst of the biggest housing construction push in a generation. Yet at the same time, many city residents—in particular, renters—continue to struggle to pay for housing, as costs have soared. The tension between these two facts is the real story of Rochester housing right now.

Since 2022, the year Malik Evans took office as mayor, construction of more than 4,200 rental units has been started or completed in the city, the mayor said in his 2026 State of the City address. Those units—more than 3,200 affordable and nearly 1,000 market-rate—represent more than $2 billion in combined investment.

More than half of the affordable units, Evans said, are priced for residents with extremely low and very low incomes, not just the 60% to 80% area-median-income band that much of the city’s assisted housing targets. The New York State Homes and Community Renewal agency, which helps finance many of the affordable projects, separately counts more than 4,700 affordable homes built, renovated or in the pipeline in Rochester over the same period—a rough match with the city’s own figures. The tally spans the whole city, though downtown has captured a large share of the recent activity.

None of it has been enough to bend the cost curve. Median rent in the city has climbed to $1,081, up roughly 40% from a decade ago. Median household income in the city has risen as well, from roughly $31,000 in 2011-2015 to about $47,000 in 2020-2024, Census Bureau estimates show—a pace that appears to have kept up with, or outstripped, rising rents. Yet more than half of Rochester’s renters—who account for nearly two-thirds of all city residents—still spend more than they can afford on housing, even as construction has surged.

In short, Rochester may be putting up new housing at a historic pace, but the city still hasn’t put the affordability crunch behind it.

A burst of building

The past year has brought a string of completions. Two affordable housing developments—Tailor Square, a 134-unit, $84 million Home Leasing project in the historic Hickey Freeman building, and Center City Courtyard, a 164-unit development occupying the full block bounded by Main, Plymouth, Broad, and Washington streets—came online this year. Evans highlighted the latter in his State of the City address for injecting “live-work-play vitality into a government-centric part of downtown that turned into a ghost town after 5 o’clock.” On June 16, completion of Park Square II, where Conifer rehabbed 200 existing units and added 40 new builds in a $119 million project, was announced. Alta Vista (76 units), Cobb’s Hill Village (104 units) and Parliament-Fairfield (110 units) round out the year’s affordable housing completions.

The largest project currently under construction is the Andrews Terrace renovation at 125 St. Paul St., a $330 million undertaking by Conifer Realty and Community Preservation Partners to provide 526 affordable units for seniors and disabled residents on Rochester’s riverfront. True North Apartments, a 70-unit development from a collaboration of five faith-based organizations and DePaul Properties, opens this summer with 35 units dedicated to supportive housing and on-site services from DePaul, Person Centered Housing Options, and a recovery and wellness clinic run by the Finger Lakes Area Counseling and Recovery Agency.

Two more projects have started since the city’s last tally. Gateway Apartments, a $72.3 million conversion of long-vacant office buildings on East Main Street into 129 affordable, income-restricted units, began construction in May with New York State Homes and Community Renewal financing. And in the northwest, Gardner’s Lofts—the long-delayed redevelopment of the former Tent City complex at Lyell and Dewey avenues, set back by a five-alarm fire in 2025—is moving again as an 88-unit, roughly $72 million supportive-housing project aimed largely at formerly homeless veterans.

First Genesis Development Corp.’s 22-unit project on Clifford Avenue, also underway, is income-restricted and counts toward the affordable tally as well. By contrast, the former Riverside Hotel, with 161 units, leans market-rate overall, with a smaller share of units affordable at 60% AMI; it is one of only a few projects in the current pipeline where market-rate units make up the majority. (A full breakdown, organized by affordable versus market-rate, is at the end of this story.)

“All of our projects are part of a bigger picture,” says Carol Wheeler, the city of Rochester’s manager of housing. “Not doing projects in isolation, but having those projects build on other assets that are within the community. We’re not just looking for projects that look nice, but we’re looking to transform neighborhoods.”

Cost-burdened households

Increased housing supply is important, but it’s only part of the affordability equation. Household income also matters.

The Rochester Housing Development Fund Corp. says the Rochester metro area has a median family income of $107,000 for a family of four, based on federal Department of Housing and Urban Development calculations. A household is considered cost-burdened once it spends more than 30% of its income on housing; for a family at 60% of area median income, that’s a ceiling of about $1,600 a month; at 30% AMI, closer to $800.

ACT Rochester’s tracking of U.S. Census Bureau data shows median monthly housing costs in the city—rent plus utilities—climbed from roughly $770 in 2015 to $1,081 in 2024—up 40% in nine years, with the curve steepening after 2020. HUD estimates put fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment at $1,050 in 2024, up from $775 in 2020, a 35% jump in four years.

The cost of buying a home in the city also has increased sharply. Greater Rochester Association of Realtors statistics show that the median sale price in the city jumped from around $102,000 in 2018 to $148,000 in 2024, a 45 percent increase. At the close of the second quarter of 2026, the median sale price was $181,000.

According to Census Bureau data, more than half (50.9%) of Rochester renters in 2024 were cost-burdened. Among homeowners, the figure was 24.7%. Those percentages have declined since 2015—from 57.9% and 25.8%, respectively—but still represent more than 38,000 households.

The city doesn’t have an official rental vacancy rate—a fact that has led lawmakers and housing advocates to push for a rental vacancy study that could qualify the city for rent stabilization under New York’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

The structural gap

Jason Sackett, president of PathStone Corp.—one of the region’s largest community development organizations—frames the problem plainly: A gap exists between what it costs to build housing and what residents can afford to pay.

“This gap drives nearly every issue we see today—from rising rents to limited homeownership opportunities,” he says. “It affects not only low-income households, but also working families who increasingly find themselves priced out of the market. Addressing it will require sustained collaboration among public, private, and nonprofit partners.”

Rochester has roughly 57,700 renter-occupied households, and more than 29,000 are cost-burdened. The 4,200 rental units built or started since 2022 works out to about 1,000 a year—and only a portion of those are priced for the lowest-income renters who need them most.

The problem, Sackett says, is not only at the lowest income levels.

“There’s a clear shortage not only for very low-income residents, but also for working families who don’t qualify for deep subsidies yet still can’t afford market rents,” he says. “Even as supply improves, affordability—especially for cost-burdened households—remains a significant concern.”

By the numbers
57,700 renter households in Rochester
29,000+ are cost-burdened
~1,000 rental units built per year since 2022, on average

Some recent construction has been helped by federal pandemic relief money that is now running out. American Rescue Plan Act funding expires at the end of 2026.

“The ARPA dollars that are having a sunset at the end of this calendar year, it was a wonderful infusion for us to help bring down the cost,” Wheeler says.

Of the more than $200 million in ARPA funding the city received, $4.4 million went directly to affordable housing projects, with another $13.4 million funding the city’s Build the Block initiative, the city’s ARPA project database shows—about $17.9 million total aimed at housing.

“Those dollars allowed projects to move forward that otherwise may have stalled,” Sackett says. “These investments have also helped stabilize neighborhoods and accelerate investment during a critical period.”

What comes after is an open question. Sackett says continued progress will require new, sustained, flexible funding—especially for early-stage and gap financing, the hardest money to replace once ARPA is gone.

The city says it will lean on state programs and its own resources going forward. Wheeler notes the state has made homeownership a parallel priority through several of its own programs. But whether those together can sustain the current production pace without ARPA funding is exactly the kind of question the city’s annual affordable housing request for proposals, with submissions due by the end of July, may begin to answer.

Homeownership push

Construction of more affordable units is only one part of the city’s housing push. In fact, homeownership—and specifically, making it accessible to first-generation buyers—is a thread running through Rochester’s housing strategy. Evans has spoken about this with particular urgency, drawing on his years in banking to describe what homeownership means for families.

“There are people in Rochester that pay more for their rent than I pay for my mortgage,” Evans told a Leadership Rochester cohort in early June at Innovation Square. “Homeownership, for me, is not something that everybody wants—this should be like college. Not everybody has to go, but if they want it, they should feel like they have the opportunity to do it.”

Wheeler echoes the mayor. “If you are a homeowner, chances are, it has better economic results, better education results, employment results, and then it is an opportunity for wealth building,” she says. “Health outcomes, having stable housing. …. It just impacts every area.”

The city’s Buy the Block program, which started in the northeast quadrant, has completed its first 24 single-family homes and is expanding to the southwest with 32 more units planned. Sackett calls it “incredibly important” for creating high-quality, affordable homes for income-qualified buyers and stabilizing neighborhoods. He notes, however, that real barriers remain: entry-level home inventory is limited; construction costs are high; and many households face challenges related to credit, down payments, and interest rates.

The city is also exploring alternate models of ownership beyond the traditional single-family home on a single lot: townhomes, condominiums, and manufactured and modular housing.

“We’re very hopeful that the first manufactured home will be up some time this year,” Wheeler says. Rochester Roots, a Rochester Land Bank project, will add 15 new units in the northwest, and Hinge Neighbors is pursuing owner-occupied townhomes on an Inner Loop East parcel.

Keeping these units affordable over time is a stated priority. Anne DaSilva Tella, the city’s director of development, explains that funding sources typically require regulatory agreements that deed-restrict homeownership units to remain affordable to specific income bands—not just at the point of sale, but for years into the future.

The city targets most of its assisted housing toward households earning from 50% and 80% of area median income, with an emphasis on the 50% to 65% range. For residents who qualify for Section 8 assistance through the Rochester Housing Authority—often at 30% AMI, or roughly $32,150 a year for a family of four—those vouchers can be layered with city programs to reach lower income levels. The goal, Wheeler says, is to ensure no assisted household pays more than 30% of its income toward housing.

Growing the number of homeowners in Rochester could help address a long-term disparity: homeownership in the city breaks sharply along racial lines.

ACT Rochester, using 2024 Census Bureau American Community Survey data, says Rochester’s overall homeownership rate is 38.1%—the lowest of any locality in the eight-county region. White residents own at a 45.7% rate, Black or African-American residents at 32.8%, and Hispanic or Latino residents at 28.4%.

There is one hopeful data point: Black homeownership in Rochester has trended upward since roughly 2019-2020, rising from around 28% to 32.8% in 2024—evidence, city officials say, that targeted programs like Buy the Block and HOME Rochester are beginning to move the needle, even as the underlying gap remains wide. Whether that trend continues after ARPA funding expires at the end of this year may be one of the clearer tests of whether the city’s homeownership strategy is working as intended.

Faith organizations as developers

Rochester’s affordable housing landscape is also being shaped by a widening circle of developers—most notably, faith communities. True North and First Genesis Development Corp. represent the leading edge of what Wheeler sees as a broader shift: churches stepping outside their walls to become active developers in the neighborhoods they serve. Many are forming their own development corporation arms so they can take on projects directly rather than partner with an outside developer.

“One of things we’re observing is now the faith community is coming out of their walls and looking to truly make a difference in their neighborhoods,” Wheeler says. “What you may hear in the next several years is that there are other churches that are looking to do development—there are other projects under discussion with development corporations that have a connection to a faith organization.”

The city says it also welcomes other first-time entrants to affordable housing development, provided the projects meet quality standards.

Balancing the market

To help narrow the affordability gap, city officials have been deliberate about encouraging market-rate development as well, viewing it as a way to ease upward pressure on rents. When the city assists market-rate projects, DaSilva Tella says, it requires that at least 20% of the residential units be made affordable to households at 60% AMI or below—a policy designed to create income-diverse buildings rather than concentrating affordability in one location and market-rate housing in another.

Riedman Cos. has completed The Neisner at East End, a 54-unit apartment community in the historic Neisner Building, and is now converting Clinton Square into a mixed-use property with more than 100 residential units on its upper floors, with deliveries expected in 2027. Evans points to these and other properties as part of the nearly 1,000 market-rate rental units completed or begun since 2022.

That activity isn’t confined to the east side of downtown, where most of the recent attention has gone. Downtown’s west side has quietly added its own cluster of conversions—Old City Hall’s transformation into The Rockford, the Terminal Building, the Edmond Building (formerly the Gannett Building) and North Plymouth Terrace among them—totaling more than 500 units completed or in the pipeline in that stretch alone. In addition, a proposed $9 million conversion of the former Rochester Savings Bank building would add 23 mostly market-rate apartments, backed in part by the city’s new $2 million Re:Main revitalization fund, created to support the rehabilitation of vacant and underused properties along Main Street from West Broad Street to North Clinton Avenue.

Still, of everything in the city’s current pipeline, only a handful of projects are primarily market-rate—a sign of where the city’s own priorities, and its subsidy dollars, are actually concentrated.

What’s next

The most ambitious item on the city’s horizon is years away. The removal of Inner Loop North—currently a transportation project managed by the Department of Environmental Services—will eventually open up roughly 20 to 22 acres of land along a 1.5-mile corridor through the heart of the city. DaSilva Tella says the city is already planning for what should fill that space; preliminary thinking points toward approximately 1,000 units of new housing, some employment uses, and space for educational facilities including land for the World of Inquiry school. The corridor’s transformation would echo the Inner Loop East removal, which helped spur development in the neighborhoods that grew up around it.

“It’s just exciting to reimagine that highway into more of a neighborhood street and the resulting land use that could happen around there,” DaSilva Tella says.

Even with this potential development, significant portions of city renters and homeowners will remain cost-burdened. Whether the city’s housing strategy can bring those numbers down meaningfully is a question the next few years will answer.

An inventory of recent and upcoming projects

This listing groups projects by primary affordability focus. Where a project mixes affordable and market-rate units, it is listed according to its primary focus.

Affordable / supportive / income-restricted

Completed in the last year:

■ Tailor Square — 1155 N. Clinton Ave., 134 units, $84 million (Home Leasing)
■ Center City Courtyard — 125 W. Main St., 164 units (HELPDevCo and CSD Housing LLC)
■ Alta Vista — 101 Franklin St., 76 units (Ibero American Development Corp.)
■ Harper’s Corner — East Main St. and North Clinton Ave., $13 million, affordable apartments with ground-floor commercial (Home Leasing)
■ Cobb’s Hill Village — 645 Norris Drive, 104 units, $45 million (Rochester Management Inc.)
■ Parliament-Fairfield — St. Paul St., 110 units preserved/added (Rochester Housing Authority)
■ Park Square II — 475 E. Broad St., 200 units rehabbed + 40 new, $113 million (Conifer Realty)
■ Buy the Block, phase one — 24 single-family homes, northeast quadrant (affordable homeownership)

Currently underway:

■ Andrews Terrace — 125 St. Paul St., 526 units, $330 million (Conifer Realty / Community Preservation Partners)
■ True North — Central Ave. and Portland Ave., 70 units, 35 supportive, $26 million (DePaul Properties and partners)
■ Beechwood Family Apartments — southeast Rochester, 54 units (Home Leasing)
■ First Genesis Development Corp. — Clifford Ave., 22 units, income-restricted; phase two and senior housing planned
■ Gateway Apartments — East Main St., 129 units, $72.3 million, income-restricted (SAA | EVI)
■ Gardner’s Lofts — Lyell & Dewey aves., 88 units, ~$72 million, supportive housing for formerly homeless veterans (WinnCompanies)

Homeownership pipeline:

■ Buy the Block, phase two — 32 units planned, southwest Rochester
■ Rochester Roots (Rochester Land Bank) — 15 new units, northwest
■ Hinge Homes — owner-occupied townhomes, Inner Loop East parcel (Hinge Neighbors)

Market-rate / mixed-income

Completed in the past year:

■ The Neisner at East End — 49 East Ave., 54 units, market rate (Riedman Cos.)

Currently underway:

■ Former Riverside Hotel — 120 East Main St., 161 units, majority market rate with a portion affordable at 60% AMI (Ellicott Development)
■ Clinton Square — 75 S. Clinton Ave., 100+ units, deliveries expected 2027, market rate (Riedman Cos.)

Source: City of Rochester, project websites

Will Cleveland is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. A former Democrat and Chronicle reporter, he writes about beer in the Finger Lakes region and Western New York on Substack. Beacon contributing writer and data journalist Jacob Schermerhorn created the data visualization.

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