Sutton Manor (photo on Warshauer Mellusi Warshauer website)
WHITE PLAINS – US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, filed a lawsuit against Bedford Development LLC; Carnegie Construction Corp.; Jobco Inc.; Robert Pascucci, the sole shareholder of Bedford and Carnegie and the president of Jobco; and Warshauer Mellusi Warshauer Architects for violating the Fair Housing Act.
The government alleges the defendants discriminated against disabled residents of the Sutton Manor condominium project in Mount Kisco, by failing to design and construct the facility so as to be accessible to persons with disabilities.
Sutton Manor was built as advertised as a 55+ adult residential community and as being Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.
But the feds said that the building, a three-story elevator building with 47 units, a community room, and underground and outdoor parking, was designed and constructed with several inaccessible features, including insufficient clear opening width at, and excessive force required to operate, the doors to the elevator lobbies, excessively high thresholds at the entrances to the patios or balconies from within individual units and from the community room, insufficient clear opening width of each panel of the double-leaf doors leading to the patio or balcony in individual units, excessively high thresholds at the entrances to showers, and insufficient clear floor space in the hallways and kitchens for maneuvering by persons who use wheelchairs.
The federal suit cites individual residents who bought units there, had difficulty maneuvering through the facilities, filed complaints for the problems to be remedied and complained via Westchester Residential Opportunities. The Westchester County Human Rights Commission even filed a lawsuit against the defendants, who failed to adequately correct many of the inaccessible features.
