New Rochelle, NY Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Density Bonus Law (2026)

11(C) creates a Community Benefit Bonus system that lets a project exceed its district's base height and story limits in exchange for investing in public benefits, up to an absolute maximum building height set for each of the DOZ's sub-districts (DO-1 through DO-8). The bonus a project can earn depends on which of three tiered 'Development Standards' it satisfies, with Development Standard 3 unlocking the largest bonus. In DO-1, the highest-intensity sub-district, the total building height including bonuses tops out at 605 feet, with up to 2 bonus stories available under Development Standard 1, up to 4 under Development Standard 2, and up to 8 under Development Standard 3.

Smaller sub-districts cap out far lower: DO-6 allows no more than 1 bonus story and only under Development Standard 2, while DO-7 caps overall height at 65 feet, rising to 75 feet only through an additional discretionary bonus story the City Council may grant before Planning Board site plan review. 14C identifying which Development Standards and which Community Benefit Bonuses it is applying for, and every CBB project must comply with whatever Community Benefit Bonus policies the City Council has adopted or modified by resolution; no building permit, certificate of occupancy, or business license can issue until the applicant demonstrates compliance with those policies.

Fees the bonus program generates within the DO-8 sub-district must be invested or spent inside DO-8 itself rather than pooled citywide. The program replaced the City's earlier Downtown Density Bonus (DDB) Overlay Zone, which the Council repealed in 2008 and again, in floating-zone form, in 2015, before folding density incentives into the current DOZ framework.