ITHACA, N.Y. — Mayor Robert Cantelmo delivered the 2025 State of the City address Tuesday afternoon, outlining his vision for the upcoming year and highlighting efforts the city will undertake to combat the ongoing housing affordability crisis and the related growing homelessness problem, among others.
The event marks Cantelmo’s second State of the City address, broadcast from City Hall’s council chambers before a small group of elected officials and city staff members. He recounted work city officials completed last year, like passing laws that require landlords to have good cause before evicting a tenant. He also reiterated his commitment to the Ithaca Green New Deal plan.
Looking forward, Cantelmo said he plans to focus on housing and homelessness, transportation investments — including calling for further operational funding for non-profit Ithaca Bikeshare in the upcoming city budget — and downtown economic development.
Perhaps most significantly, Cantelmo announced that the city had received $250,000 from New York State to “engage in a comprehensive rewrite of our zoning ordinance.”
Zoning reform has been a particular interest of Cantelmo and other members of Common Council.
“Modernizing our land-use policies is critical to increasing the housing supply, combating rising property taxes, and ensuring that all Ithacans can find affordable places to live,” Cantelmo said. “Coupled with a revision of our comprehensive plan, this rewrite is a crucial next step toward making Ithaca’s housing market more sustainable, accessible and equitable for everyone.”
In an interview after his speech, Cantelmo explained that he wants to simplify local zoning laws to make it easier to navigate for those interested in developing locally – housing, in particular.
The city, Cantelmo noted, has a very high number of separate zones per capita compared to similar municipalities.
“One of the things we’re aiming to do is not just sort of streamline our zoning and reduce the number of different classifications, but also enact some best practices that would make it easier for folks to be able to develop, again, all types of development,” Cantelmo said. “But really, my focus being on housing, it’s trying to make sure that that housing supply is as primed for growth as possible.”
Cantelmo said since the comprehensive plan, an overall set of goals and guidelines for Ithaca’s long-term development introduced in 2015, is about halfway through its lifespan, this is an opportune time to “streamline our code.”
“People want to be living here, and the big impediment to that is the lack of housing supply,” Cantelmo said. “It takes so long for units to come online. It’s such a lengthy process, and that’s not just an artifact of city policy, but it is a very complicated thing that ends up passing on costs to the end user, whether that’s tenants, whether that’s owners.”
Housing consumed much of Cantelmo’s speech, as it has dominated conversations locally for several years. He expressed gratitude to Tompkins County officials for the steps they have taken recently to address homelessness, like the announcement of plans for a new year-round shelter. He said the city will also create an advisory committee on homeless encampments — a renewed effort to address the living conditions of the local unhoused population.
The committee will consist of new Deputy City Manager Dominick Recckio, Alderpersons Kayla Matos, David Shapiro and Patrick Kuehl and other city staff members.
In response to a question from The Ithaca Voice, Cantelmo said his administration was pivoting away from a previous proposal that would have introduced permanent amenities into sanctioned campsites. Councilmembers had approved a plan to install handwashing stations, bathrooms and shower facilities on a plot of city owned land upon which a longstanding homeless encampment once occupied. But Cantelmo said complications with regulations around state parks have made those plans impractical.
Cantelmo said the new goal would be to have enough support services available to help people find more permanent housing or shelter that works for them.
“That’s, I think, the goal we should be striving for as a community and not looking to make it slightly less uncomfortable to be outside,” Cantelmo said.
Cantelmo also sounded the alarm on local flood mitigation issues in light of planned updates to the maps the federal government uses to assess flood risk. The updated maps have become a sort of specter looming over the city for years, as they could lead to significantly higher living costs, particularly if more of the city’s property owners are required to purchase flood insurance.
“Unfortunately, [Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA)] has opted to move forward with extremely conservative maps that rely on actuarial tables, theoretical modeling and, we believe, extreme overestimates on projected lake levels,” Cantelmo said. “I have already reached out to our Congressional representatives to elevate our advocacy to FEMA leadership and secure approval for a realistic remediation strategy that protects our residents.”
Cantelmo said he envisions the public and City Hall working together to emphasize the local concerns about the flood maps to those in higher elected offices who may be able to work with FEMA to tweak the final local map results.
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