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A homeowner who wants to build a small apartment behind a house, a gardener who wants to put up a greenhouse, a landlord who rents rooms to visitors and a developer planning an apartment building all depend on the same thing: the zoning rules that determine what they can do with their property.
Rochester is considering a sweeping rewrite of those rules. The proposal would replace the zoning code adopted in 2003 and redraw the map that assigns a zoning district to every parcel in the city. Some properties could gain new options; others would face new restrictions.
The effort grew out of Rochester 2034, the comprehensive plan City Council adopted unanimously on Nov. 12, 2019. The city’s Zoning Alignment Project, known as ZAP, released the current draft code, proposed map and final generic environmental impact statement in April. The city Planning Commission voted 6-0 in July to recommend it with changes.
Council President Miguel Meléndez has said there will be no vote in November. Residents’ next chance to weigh in is Council’s Speak to Council session on Thursday, Nov. 12.
Zoning touches nearly every property decision in the city: whether a homeowner can add rental income, where a business can open, how tall a building can be, how much parking it needs and what an owner can do to an older house. Deputy Mayor Michael Burns told the Council the new rules will shape the city’s growth for the next “15, 20 years,” and Meléndez called the review “probably the most important thing we will do as a body.”
The city’s environmental impact statement describes the proposal as a balancing act: adding density in a city that still has vacant land and room to grow, without overcrowding established neighborhoods.
The code is meant to carry out the plan, not set new goals. A zoning code “is not intended to decide the community’s vision,” said a slide in the presentation Matthew Simonis, the city’s manager of zoning, gave Council in October. Those choices, it said, “belong in adopted plans and policies” such as Rochester 2034. New York law requires zoning to be consistent with a city’s comprehensive plan.
Residents have weighed in heavily. The city received more than 1,000 comments on its first draft in 2023 and 2024, according to the environmental impact statement, and its 134-page comment-response table shows how far apart they can be. One resident wrote in support of turning large Browncroft homes into multifamily housing so young families could afford the neighborhood. Another wrote that higher density “means more opportunity for crime.” Many residents also complained about single-family homes rented room by room to students. The city says that’s already illegal and a matter for code enforcement.
The debate continued when the Planning Commission took testimony on the final draft in June, according to the commission’s minutes. Neighborhood associations from North Winton Village to the 19th Ward asked the city to protect owner-occupied, single-family-home streets. Housing advocates said the plan is too cautious. Ames Grigg, founder of the Zoning and Permitting Accountability Coalition, said zoning has helped entrench segregation in Rochester and that the plan misses a chance to address it. “The ZAP is not reform. It is business as usual,” Grigg said.
Many speakers said they had too little time and notice to review it. “We feel we haven’t been heard,” said Luis Aponte, president of the JOSANA neighborhood association.
This fall, Council’s nine district forums produced more than 100 pages of additional comments, Meléndez said.
Here’s what the code would do on the biggest issues.
Backyard apartments. The code would allow accessory dwelling units, or ADUs: a smaller home inside, attached to or behind a single-family house. An ADU could have one bedroom and up to 800 square feet, could be no larger than the main house and, if newly built, no taller than 15 feet or the main house, whichever is lower. The owner would have to live on the property, and the unit couldn’t have its own driveway. For some households, that could mean a home for an aging parent or rental income without buying another property.
ADUs would be allowed outright in most districts but would need a special permit, with public notice and a Planning Commission hearing, in low-density residential areas. That requirement divides residents. Linda Kingsley, the city’s recently retired corporation counsel, told the commission it’s an appropriate compromise. Laurie Mahoney, who facilitates the housing team of the Commission on Racial and Structural Equity, asked the city to drop it, saying low-density lots are the ones most likely to have room. The city’s environmental review notes it has received few actual requests for ADUs, and the code wouldn’t guarantee that any are built or that they’d be affordable.
Parking. The draft would drop minimum parking requirements for residential development in mixed-use areas and downtown but keep them in the city’s low-, medium- and high-density residential districts. The environmental review says homes without on-site parking lead to widespread illegal parking on lawns and sidewalks, and that the city hasn’t found residential minimums held back development; developers often seek permits to build more parking than the code allows. It calls the change an incremental step that the Council could revisit. Advocates of dropping minimums counter that required parking takes up land and money that could go to housing, and that removing a minimum doesn’t mean a project will have no parking.
Residents split on that, too. Judy Hay, who chairs the Swillburg Neighborhood Association, said neighbors already park on lawns and sidewalks and supported keeping the minimums. Eric Cooper of the Pearl-Meigs-Monroe neighborhood argued for ending them citywide, saying required parking adds costs that get passed on to residents.
Short-term rentals. Short-term rentals drew more comments than any other subject during the first comment period, so the administration moved those rules into a separate amendment that the Council will decide on its own. It would:
■ require a special permit in residential districts to rent rooms in an owner’s home, including bed-and-breakfasts, and require that the home be the owner’s primary residence;
■ allow or require a special permit for renting a whole unit the owner doesn’t live in, depending on the district, generally limited to one unit in smaller buildings;
■ cap short-term units at 25% of a larger building—above that, the building would be regulated as a hotel; and
■ require a local manager, within 30 miles, available around the clock for whole-unit rentals.
Supporters see short-term rentals as income or a way to host visitors. Critics point to lost long-term housing, turnover, parking and traffic. Tom Pastecki of the ABC Streets Neighborhood Association told the Planning Commission more than 600 unregulated short-term rentals operate in the city, and several speakers said the main code shouldn’t advance without these rules.
Community gardens. After gardeners pushed back on the first draft, the city raised the share of a garden lot that can be covered by high tunnels and other temporary season-extending structures to 50%, from 25%. Beekeeping would be allowed with an administrative approval and a hive-management plan. But each garden would be limited to one shed and one greenhouse, each no larger than 144 square feet. The Rochester Food Policy Council told the Planning Commission that cap makes some gardens in the city’s most disinvested neighborhoods, often run by Black and brown residents on city-permitted vacant lots, noncompliant.
Historic buildings. The code would replace the current list of Designated Buildings of Historic Value with the Citywide Historic Resource Survey, compiled by the Landmark Society of Western New York. It covers historic buildings outside preservation districts that aren’t designated landmarks. For buildings on the list, the draft would prohibit the following without special approval:
■ Demolition.
■ Removing, covering or substantially altering significant features such as slate or tile roofs, original siding, porches and cornices. Painting an unpainted surface counts as covering.
■ Replacement windows that don’t keep the original size, location and a similar pane pattern.
An owner who wants to do any of those things would first need a certificate of appropriateness. It would come from a committee of the Rochester Preservation Board or, for work that fits the board’s guidelines, from the city’s director of zoning and permitting. The Preservation Board would take over these reviews from the Zoning Board of Appeals. The city says its members have historic-preservation expertise the zoning board lacked.
The bar is high. To demolish a listed building, an owner would have to show it is dangerous, badly deteriorated or not economically viable, backed by a letter from a licensed architect or engineer. To remove or cover a feature such as a porch or slate roof, an owner would have to document that repairing or replacing it in kind would cost too much: enough to eliminate a reasonable return on an income property, or more than a homeowner can afford.
Routine upkeep wouldn’t need approval. The code exempts routine repairs and maintenance, replacement of historic features precisely in kind with matching materials, interior renovations and repainting surfaces that are already painted.
The city says the survey could also help owners by identifying buildings that may qualify for state or federal rehabilitation tax credits.
The map. The code sets the rules for each zoning district; the map decides which district every property is in. The changes matter most along commercial corridors, near proposed mixed-use areas and wherever boundaries move. Those boundaries drew the sharpest objections, and the Planning Commission’s July recommendation asked for six map changes, including keeping properties on Chili and West avenues, Atlantic Avenue and Merchants Road low-density and returning the south side of University Avenue near Grove Place to medium-density residential.
Residents can compare a property’s current and proposed zoning on the city’s interactive map, then check what the draft code allows in that district.
What happens next. The code and map are before Council as Int. No. 352. A companion bill, Int. No. 353, would temporarily halt applications to amend the zoning code and map. Both are being held in the Council’s Committee of the Whole. The Council can approve the code and map, amend them or reject them. Meeting details are on the Council’s public meetings page, and the documents are in the city’s ZAP document library.
Adopting a new code wouldn’t by itself produce affordable housing or new businesses. “Zoning facilitates the desired outcome—it does not work alone,” Simonis’ presentation said. But the code would set the rules every future project is measured against: what can be built outright, what needs extra review and what can’t go forward.
Where the zoning overhaul stands
City Council won’t vote on Rochester’s proposed zoning overhaul this month. Council President Miguel Meléndez said he expects more public comment sessions into December before the Council decides whether the plan needs amendments. A vote could come in December, he said, but he would not commit to it.
What’s next
■ Nov. 12: Residents can address the Council about the plan at its regular Speak to Council session. Councilmember Mitch Gruber wrote that more public hearings will follow this month.
■ After that: Council can approve, amend or reject the code and map. Short-term rental rules will be decided separately.How we got here
■ 2019: City Council adopts Rochester 2034, the plan the new code is meant to carry out.
■ 2023-24: A first draft draws more than 1,000 public comments.
■ April 2026: The administration releases the final draft code and proposed map.
■ July 13: The City Planning Commission votes 6-0 to recommend the plan, with six map changes.
■ Sept. 22: Council introduces the code and map, plus a temporary moratorium on zoning amendment applications. Both are held in committee.
■ Fall: Nine Council forums produce more than 100 pages of comments.
■ Oct. 21-22: Council spends nearly six hours reviewing the plan with the administration.How to weigh in
Meeting details are on the Council’s public meetings page. Residents can look up a property’s proposed zoning on the city’s interactive map.
Will Cleveland is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a former Democrat and Chronicle reporter. He writes about beer in the Finger Lakes region and Western New York at Cleveland Prost and publishes investigative pieces at The Genesee Signal.
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