A fair-housing nonprofit agency in White Plains has gone to federal court claiming village of Bronxville officials and a Greenwich-based developer have illegally discriminated against families with children at a downtown condominium project under construction near Bronxville”™s Metro-North train station.
Westchester Residential Opportunities Inc. filed the complaint in U.S. District Court on Jan. 15 against the village and Gateway Kensington LLC, the developer of a 54-unit condo building on Kensington Road. Gateway Kensington is an entity of Fareri Associates LP in Greenwich.
“Bronxville and its developer have deliberately set out to design and market new condominiums to deter families with children from moving into the village,” said WRO Executive Director Geoffrey Anderson when announcing the lawsuit.
The housing agency claims Bronxville officials acted illegally when in 2006 they created an “age-targeted” special use permit in the village zoning code, which allows developers to build more units than allowed by zoning law if the housing is designed to appeal primarily to individuals and couples without children. The Gateway Kensington developer was granted the special permit in 2013, according to the plaintiff.
The housing agency said the Gateway Kensington apartments are intentionally designed for empty nesters, with few bedrooms and with dens lacking closets and placed far from bathrooms. The development will not offer any child-friendly amenities, according to the agency.
Such discrimination is not only wrong but illegal, said Marlene Zarfes, director of fair housing at WRO. “Municipalities violate fair housing laws when they develop housing for so-called empty nesters and discourage families from living in their communities. While age-restricted housing for seniors can be created legally under federal law, it must be for those either 55 or 62 and older.”
The village of Bronxville, in a Kensington Road condo project fact sheet posted on its website, says the development is projected to generate “only 5 to 7 school-age children” and bring an estimated $600,000 in annual tax revenue to the village and school district.
“This age-targeted concept is a new one,” said Diane Houk, an attorney representing WRO at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, when asked whether there were any case precedents for lawsuits against municipalities for discriminating against families with children in housing. “I have not heard of others doing that.”
“What we see is suburban communities using their zoning codes to restrict access” on the basis of race, ethnic group, disabilities and other factors, she said.
WRO in its complaint claims the village and the developer are in violation of provisions of the federal Fair Housing Act and the state Human Rights Act prohibiting discrimination on the basis of familial status and age. The agency has asked the federal court to permanently bar the village from using its “age-targeted” category and to make the developer revise project plans “to ensure non-discrimination in the design, marketing, and sale” of the condo units.
WRO said its investigation of the village, which led to the lawsuit, was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through its Fair Housing Initiatives Program.
