County’s elite towns battle ‘brain drain’

Young educated workers are fleeing Westchester”™s most exclusive neighborhoods faster than you can say “brain drain,” according to a new housing report.

There is an exodus of adults ages 25 to 34 years old from the most expensive towns in Westchester and New York City”™s other suburbs, according to a report from Community Housing Innovations Inc., a fair housing group.

Alexander Roberts, the group”™s executive director and author of the report, tied the population shift to the price of housing and lack of affordable units in the county”™s more elite communities.

“Think about the fact that zoning is a political and not an economic act,” Roberts wrote in a posting on westfaironline.com, the Business Journal”™s website. “If left to the free market, developers would build rental apartments in Scarsdale to meet the demand.”

Rye saw the fastest brain-drain pace, with 63 percent of the 25-to-34 demographic leaving the community since 2000, according to the report. Over the same period, Pound Ridge lost 58 percent, Lewisboro 54 percent and Scarsdale 52 percent. Those communities also experienced heavy losses of its 35- to 44-year-old demographic.

Of the 10 communities with the largest change in that age group, all were named in a 2009 county housing discrimination settlement with the federal government. In that settlement, Westchester agreed to build or obtain 750 affordable housing units in some of its most elite ”“ and least racially diverse ”“ communities. The majority of those units were required to be built in municipalities whose populations were fewer than 3 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic.

The report, released Feb. 26, tied the population shift to the price of housing and lack of affordable units in the communities. Those communities have been criticized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for zoning that favors construction of single-family homes, though officials from the municipalities and Westchester County have contended their zoning is not exclusionary.

Roberts defined affordable as being priced for for a family of four with a household income of $86,000 and said that Scarsdale, as an example, had not provided any affordable housing in the 20 years since the adoption of Westchester”™s initial Housing Allocation Plan. That plan, approved by a housing commission, sought to build 5,000 units over 10 years with a portion allotted fairly to each community. Scarsdale, Roberts said, was to have received 160 of those units for countywide needs.

“It would not be catastrophic if Scarsdale zoned 3 percent of their land for affordable rentals or condos, which would more than meet the need and fulfill their duty to the larger community,” he said.

The county”™s more integrated communities, meanwhile, experienced less drastic declines in their youth populations and in some cases actually saw growth in recent years. Peekskill saw an 8 percent increase in the 25 to 34 age group and White Plains saw a 6 percent increase in that same demographic.

Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council of Westchester, said that although youth flight is and has long been a concern of businesses, the group”™s own polling and studies have shown that young people do want to live in Westchester but are more attracted to its urban centers. So-called millennials ”“ those born in 1980 and later ”“ are less likely to be married or have children in their 30s, and many prefer walkable cities such as White Plains, where nightlife, restaurants and the Metro-North Railroad are in walking distance of their condos or apartments.

Gordon said the business council has been looking to identify growth areas for mixed-use housing in areas like White Plains and Port Chester. A recent council study identified the village of Ossining as a community that could redevelop the area around its train station to attract young professionals.

“There are so many positive attributes of Westchester County that need to be focused on,” she said.

The study used data from the American Community Survey on PolicyMap.com.

Westchester saw a countywide 12.83 percent loss in its 25 to 34 age group, which was slightly less than Suffolk and Nassau counties, with 12.74 percent and 12.74 percent losses, respectively.

By community:

Rye
-63 percent (25-34)
-16 percent (35-44)

Pound Ridge
-58 percent (25-34)
-15 percent (35-44)

Lewisboro
-54 percent (25-34)
-36 percent (35-44) 

Scarsdale
–52 percent (25-34)
-15 percent (35-44)

Somers
-46 percent (25-34)
-21 percent (35-44)

Larchmont
-45 percent (25-34)
-30 percent (35-44)

New Castle
-40 percent (25-34)
-21 percent (35-44)

Yorktown Heights
-36 percent (25-34)
-25 percent (35-44)

Bronxville
-23 percent (25-34)
-28 percent (35-44)

Bedford
-21 percent (25-34)
-18 percent (35-44)