Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo delivered his 2026 State of the City Address on Jan. 14, outlining an agenda centered on housing, zoning, climate action and the city’s outstanding financial audits.

“For some, the state of our city does not feel strong, and I understand why,” Cantelmo said during the Common Council meeting. “Housing is expensive. Infrastructure is strained. Trust needs to be rebuilt. But strength is not the absence of problems. It is the willingness to face them directly and do the hard work of change to become stronger, more accountable, and more prepared for the future that we are building together.”

Housing and zoning

Cantelmo said housing is his “top policy priority” and “the defining challenge of our time.” He said the city’s efforts to streamline development and boost affordability over the past year have resulted in hundreds of new unit approvals and the fastest project pace in years.

The city launched an interactive housing development dashboard, allowing residents to track inventory, project types and construction progress in real-time. This pilot tool aims to provide a measurable, data-driven look at the impact of recent housing reforms. Cantelmo said the city will refine the platform based on community feedback. He called the dashboard “a major step forward in an open data-driven governance structure.”

Cantelmo announced a comprehensive zoning rewrite will align city regulations with housing, equity, and sustainability goals. Key reforms include legalizing small-scale multi-unit housing — such as duplexes and rowhomes — citywide and eliminating or reducing off-street parking minimums. To guide these efforts, the city will appoint a Zoning Advisory Commission to collaborate with staff on modernizing residential and mixed-use regulations. He also said the city plans to enact legislation to expand the planned unit development (PUD) framework.

The mayor noted the SouthWorks project received $38 million from New York state’s ACHIEVE program for economic development. The initiative aims to transform the blighted former Morse Chain Factory site into Ithaca’s next major mixed-use neighborhood.

The city will support revitalization of the West Martin Luther King Jr. Street corridor through a community-driven study of land use, infrastructure, and investment barriers. The effort aligns with the city’s broader downtown revitalization initiative proposal to strengthen Ithaca’s urban core and improve connectivity between downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. Cantelmo aims to forge new private and nonprofit investments on these initiatives.

Cantelmo said Ithaca’s growth must be rooted in fair labor standards, noting that the city has spent the past year aligning its economic development tools with workforce protections to ensure fairness, stability, and respect for employees.

“The economy we are building is one where employers can thrive, workers are treated with dignity, and residents have a clear sense of what responsible employment practices look like,” he said.

Audits and administrative goals

Cantelmo also emphasized the importance of trust, accountability and transparency in local government. He said completing the city’s outstanding audits is the "top operational priority," noting he is working closely with Acting City Manager Dominick Recckio to finalize the process. Public briefings are scheduled to begin in February to inform both residents and alderpersons on the city’s progress.

While the City of Ithaca finalized its 2021 financial audit in September 2025, it still faces a significant backlog of incomplete audits for 2022, 2023, and 2024. In April 2024, Moody’s Investors Service revoked Ithaca’s bond rating due to a "lack of sufficient information" stemming from the backlog. A bond rating measures a city’s creditworthiness; without it, the city faces higher borrowing costs and potential financial instability, making it more difficult and expensive to fund major public projects.

Other administrative goals include recruiting a permanent city controller and human resources director to bolster financial discipline and reduce long-term debt. These hires, Cantelmo said, are part of a broader strategy to develop a multi-year capital and facilities plan to end deferred maintenance and modernize city infrastructure.

The charter commission will modernize the city charter to explore election reform and clarify the specific roles of the mayor, alderpersons and city manager. Cantelmo said the updates will “strengthen democratic accountability” and ensure the city government’s structure is better understood.

The city officially transitioned from a council-mayor to a council-manager form of government in 2024, a structural shift that Ithaca residents approved in a 2021 vote.

“Residents deserve a system where responsibility is clear, authority is transparent, and outcomes can be fairly evaluated,” Cantelmo said.

Proposed arts and culture district

To reinforce Ithaca as a national destination for arts and culture, Cantelmo announced plans to explore the creation of a formal arts and culture district as "economic infrastructure." He noted Ithaca was ranked first onCNN’s list of “America’s Best Towns to Visit 2025” and second onSMU DataArts’ 2024 list of top midsized arts-vibrant communities nationwide.

Cantelmo said the city will spend 2026 focusing on stakeholder engagement and feasibility studies to identify “locations, governance models, funding strategies, and how cultural investment can advance economic opportunity and cultural equity across the city.” The initiative seeks to drive tourism and support small businesses.

Climate action

On climate action, Cantelmo said theTompkins Green Energy Network is scheduled to launch this September. This community choice aggregation program aims to provide residents with cleaner energy at competitive rates, with public outreach beginning in February. Additionally, the city’sClimate Action Plan (CAP) — a roadmap to address climate change through decarbonization and community resilience — is on track for formal adoption this spring following public input.

Cantelmo said a new $1.5 million federal grant will support theEnergy Warriors program and clean energy investment in the Ithaca City School District. He said the funding will link climate action to workforce development.

The mayor reaffirmed that participatory budgeting would allow residents to directly decide how public funds are invested, which it has since 2024. His administration plans to advance data-driven flood mitigation projects and pursue official map revisions. The city will provide updates as these initiatives progress.

“The future of Ithaca is not something that happens to us,” Cantelmo said. “It is something that we are going to build.”

Philip O’Dell is a news reporter for the Ithaca Times and Finger Lakes Community Newspapers, covering various topics that include local government and crime. Reach him via email at philip@ithacatimes.com.