Rental conversions in Westchester

A Croton-on-Hudson accessory apartment must have at least 300 square feet of habitable floor area and no more than 800 square feet or 40 percent of the house's habitable floor area, whichever is less.¹⁰ Croton-on-Hudson allows no more than 50 accessory apartment and cottage permits village-wide at any time.¹⁰ In Croton-on-Hudson, a property not on the village sewer system needs Westchester County Department of Health approval before the Planning Board approves an accessory apartment.¹⁰

New Castle allows one accessory apartment on a one-family lot, in the house or an accessory building, and the owner must live in one of the units as a principal residence.¹¹ In New Castle an accessory apartment inside the house must be at least 300 square feet and no more than 1,000 square feet or 30 percent of the dwelling, whichever is less, with no more than two bedrooms.¹¹

Yonkers limits those accessory apartments to relatives of the owner or the owner's spouse: parents, children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews and nieces.¹² Other cities, towns and villages set their own terms, so read your own municipality's law before paying for drawings.

New York's Plus One ADU Program, funded with $85 million in the 2022–2023 state capital budget, works through local governments and nonprofits to help low- and middle-income owner-occupants of single-family homes build a new accessory unit or bring an existing one up to code.¹⁴ HCR's list of Plus One ADU localities includes six Westchester communities, Cortlandt, Croton-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington and Yorktown, all pointed to Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester.¹⁴ If you live in one of those places, ask whether the program can pay toward a conversion like yours.

New York's lead rental registry covers rental properties built before 1980 with two or more units in 25 communities of concern, including Buffalo and Cheektowaga in Erie County and Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle in Westchester, and requires a lead hazard inspection at least every three years.¹⁵ Under the lead rental registry, a unit the owner or the owner’s immediate family lives in can be exempt from the inspection, but the other rental units in the building still have to comply.¹⁵

Lead hazards found under the registry must be fixed with lead-safe work practices by an EPA-certified contractor, or by an owner trained in lead-safe renovation for repainting.¹⁵ New York's Leading in Lead Prevention Program is a state-funded grant for fixing lead paint hazards in multi-family rental properties built before 1980 in the state's areas of concern, aimed at owners covered by the lead rental registry.¹⁶ The Westchester County Health Department administers the Leading in Lead Prevention Program for Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle.¹⁶

These are the national model code's rules; your municipality applies New York's version. The 2021 IRC requires the units of a two-family dwelling to be separated by walls and floors with at least a 1-hour fire-resistance rating, or a 1/2-hour rating if the building has an automatic sprinkler system throughout.¹⁷

The 2021 IRC requires at least one egress door for each dwelling unit, reached by a continuous path that does not pass through a garage, and opening to a public way or a yard or court that leads to one.¹⁷ In a split-level or a house on a slope, that often means a new door at the lower level rather than sharing the front stairs. The 2021 IRC requires smoke alarms in each sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area and on every story including basements, interconnected within each dwelling unit so that one sounding sets off all of them.¹⁷

EPA's lead renovation rule generally doesn't cover homeowners working on their own pre-1978 homes, but it does apply if you rent out all or part of your home.¹⁸ Federal law requires renovation firms working in a rented home to give the renters EPA's Renovate Right pamphlet no more than 60 days before work begins.¹⁹

More than one in four adults 65 and older fall each year.²⁰ Yonkers' law is written for relatives, and many owners elsewhere build the unit for a parent too. A step-free entry, a curbless shower and lever handles cost little more when they're in the first drawings. NAHB's Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS) credential trains remodelers in home modifications for aging in place.²¹

The number on this page puts you through, on a recorded line, to one independent company that handles rental conversions in the Westchester area. Design, schedule and price are between you and that company.

That company pays us for each call, so connecting costs you nothing, and no one from our side contacts you by phone or text afterward. How we make money

Westchester County's Department of Consumer Protection licenses home improvement contractors and requires plumbers and electricians to hold a county trade license to work in the county.²² Westchester County tells consumers to ask plumbers and electricians to show their county license card, which shows when the license expires, or to search the county's online list of licensed tradespeople.²³ Check a New York license

A New York home improvement contractor must deposit payments received before the job is finished as the Lien Law requires, or instead give the owner a bond, contract of indemnity or irrevocable letter of credit, and the contract must tell the owner so.²⁴ Make the Planning Board's approval a condition of the contract, so construction doesn't start before the board has ruled.