Westchester seeks common ground on housing monitor report

Six Westchester municipalities have zoning practices that are contributing to a lack of integration of their black and Hispanic populations, according to a federal housing monitor”™s latest analysis.

The study, released Monday, is not a final report and monitor James E. Johnson, of the firm Debevoise & Plimpton L.L.P., said the municipalities named would have the chance to justify the seemingly exclusionary zoning or take steps to modify their local codes.

Harrison, Larchmont, Lewisboro, North Castle, Pelham Manor and Rye Brook were cited for either restricting multifamily housing to areas with large minority populations or restricting development of housing types “most often used by minority residents.” Harrison was cited for both. Johnson said the most recent analysis looked at clusters rather than populations ”” the overall minority population of Rye Brook, for example, increased by 111 percent in the 10 years prior to the last U.S. Census.

“We can”™t stop at the shift,” Johnson said at a joint legislative committee meeting Wednesday. “We need to continue and take a deeper look.” The report said that the sole district allowing for two-family homes accounted for 50.8 percent of the village”™s minority population but only 15.6 percent of Rye Brook”™s total household population. The district is in the southernmost part of the village on the Port Chester border.

The chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators is now looking to adopt that analysis and several others as part of the requirements of the settlement of a 2009 affordable housing lawsuit. In that settlement, Westchester agreed to build or obtain 750 units of affordable housing in 31 of its communities where the population was less than 2 percent black and 7 percent Hispanic.

The county was required to issue an analysis of impediments to fair housing as part of the settlement, but the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has rejected eight times the analyses from Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino”™s office, which said there were no impediments to fair housing.

Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, a Democrat, said it was time that the county executive comply with that provision of the settlement.

“At some point, you kind of get the pickup that maybe you”™re doing something wrong,” he said. Last year, the monitor issued his first report under New York state”™s Berenson legal standard to determine whether zoning practices were exclusionary based on socioeconomic status. Seven municipalities were found to be exclusionary in that report, though three have since been removed from the list due to modifications of their zoning codes. The monitor”™s most recent study used the federal standards of the lawsuit NAACP v. Town of Huntington.

Kaplowitz wants the board to vote to accept the Huntington and Berenson analyses as part of a package along with the analyses from Astorino”™s office, which he believes combined will settle the provision. The chairman wants to approve the package by Monday, the date of a deadline from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after which Westchester will lose millions in federal grants.

CDBG funding hangs in the balance

The county already lost $7.2 million in Community Development Block Grants, or CDBGs, in 2011 due to noncompliance with the settlement. It will lose another $5.2 million at the end of this month and since the applications come in three year cycles a loss this year could mean two more years in addition to that with no CDBGs ”” a total loss of $22 million. The original deadline for compliance was earlier this year, but Kaplowitz successfully lobbied to have the deadline pushed back several times. This deadline may be more compelling ”” the fiscal year ends in late September.

The county executive, for his part, declined Kaplowitz”™s request to adopt the monitor”™s reports and sent a letter listing eight reasons for his denial. Astorino disagreed with the methodology used in the Huntington study and in a previous interview said that he would not be “held hostage to bureaucrats” in Washington, D.C. even if it meant losing the CDBGs.

“It”™s not worth $5 million; it”™s not worth a billion dollars,” he said. Astorino may veto any law from lawmakers to accept the Huntington report, even as part of a package.

In the letter to Kaplowitz, Astorino said that incorporating the report into impediment studies would, “completely undermine the principle of Home Rule since the county would be agreeing to turn over decision making on local zoning to a federal agency.”

Astorino”™s stance means even if a bill adopting the reports gets to the executive, he would likely veto it. The 17-person board would then need 12 votes to override that veto ”” Kaplowitz told reporters that he was speaking to his associates to see if they”™d support an override of a veto.

The time factor

Legislator Catherine Borgia, the Democratic majority leader, said it was unlikely lawmakers could approve the package in time for the deadline.

“I don”™t see how we can,” she said. Borgia categorized the county executive”™s stance as “stubbornness” and blamed Astorino for the loss of CDBGs for local communities who could use the money for projects such as infrastructure repairs and park work. She noted that the monitor”™s latest analysis was released only seven days before the deadline, allowing little time to vet the study, speak to municipal leaders and bring the matter to a county board vote.

There remains a question from some legislators: Even if Westchester submits its analysis package to HUD by the deadline, will the county be guaranteed to have its CDBG funding restored? Legislator John Testa, the Republican minority leader, said the data in the most recent report was taken out of context because it did not take into consideration the larger picture of the geography or demographics of a community. In Harrison, for example, only 0.3 percent of its total land is used for multifamily homes ”” but some Republican legislators noted that Harrison houses the county airport and numerous corporate parks which combined take up a large portion of town real estate.

The monitor, in his report, noted that 43 percent of Harrison”™s black population was clustered in four Census blocks, while the seven single-family districts had an only 6 percent minority population. Harrison has no affordable housing projects in the pipeline and has not built any affordable units since 2000, the report said.

Testa criticized HUD for not coming to the table to meet face-to-face with legislators, saying there have been a number of questions about the terms of the settlement that remain ambiguous. He said the requirements continue to shift beyond the basic premise of building the 750 units. “The bar keeps getting moved,” he said.

He credited the board chairman for trying to reach an amicable conclusion but said there remains a fundamental difference in viewpoint, with HUD and the monitor seeing exclusionary zoning where he and other legislators do not.

“I don”™t think this issue will ever come to a close,” he said.