The arguments for and against the lawsuit charging Westchester County with making false claims in obtaining more than $52 million in federal funds should have ended with the signing of a settlement on Aug. 9, 2009. That settlement committed the county to build 750 units of fair and affordable housing in the 31 most-segregated communities. It is now up to County Executive Rob Astorino, who opposed the settlement as a candidate, to lead in its implementation.
We, as business leaders, need to help him convince the towns and villages to produce some of the affordable housing they have resisted for nearly 20 years.
The county executive has let it be known that his administration intends to make good on the settlement. However, the settlement order required the county to submit a detailed implementation plan involving specific sites and targets. The federal court-appointed monitor rejected the county”™s first submission as too vague and the fate of the second remains unknown.
Few think the housing will occur without a fight. The New York State Constitution gives towns and villages power over zoning and not enough towns and villages are voluntarily stepping up to the plate to identify potential sites. The county says about six or seven have come forward. Village officials, like Larchmont”™s former Mayor Elizabeth Feld, warn that a 20-year attitude of stonewalling affordable housing will not miraculously disappear.
The settlement order commits the county to sue offending municipalities with the presumed full support of the federal government. As one developer said at a recent meeting, “The surest way to avoid litigation is to threaten it.” But the county executive so far has refused.
Ironically, Astorino is in a unique position to lead the charge as an opponent of mandated affordable housing from a town ”“ Mount Pleasant ”“ that has yet to produce even one unit. His bona fides as “one of us” could help him sell the settlement, if he chooses.
Instead of avoiding a public airing of the terms of the settlement ”“ his administration did not even send a speaker to a recent Urban Land Institute event to discuss the settlement ”“ Astorino should visit each of the municipalities appealing to the public for help.
He can commiserate with them based on his long-held views on the primacy of home rule and then give each a deadline to come forward with an appropriate site, based on the fair-share requirements for affordable housing developed by the Westchester County Housing Opportunity Commission. This would promote home rule, allowing the communities to choose their own sites, consistent with the settlement order obligation that the housing be developed on the census blocks with the lowest percentages of African-Americans and Latinos.
Moreover, there is nothing in the settlement order that prevents the county from offering incentives for communities to comply, as Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner has suggested. Perhaps in return for producing affordable housing, communities could gain access to funding for desired parks, street improvements, open space or other qualified projects. It”™s been determined that subsidies for affordable housing cost between $125,000 and $200,000 per unit. But smart mixed-income projects like Woodcrest Village in Mount Kisco have produced affordable units at no cost to taxpayers by giving developers density bonuses so that the profits on market-rate units subsidize the affordable ones. Mixed-income developments are also much easier to sell to the neighbors.
If you tell each of the affected communities how much the county is willing to commit for each affordable unit they produce and let them keep what is left over for parks or other improvements, these towns and villages may find creative ways to find development sites.
If the communities do not voluntarily submit sites, then they will likely lose their home-rule prerogatives and sites will surely be imposed upon them by developers, the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the county itself.
Alexander H. Roberts is executive director of Community Housing Innovations Inc. Reach him at aroberts@chigrants.org.
