WHITE PLAINS – After some
eight years of battling with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development‘s
claim that Westchester County practices exclusionary housing, the battle
is over.
County Executive Robert Astorino said on Tuesday that while he accepted
the terms of an agreement made by the previous administration with HUD
to build 750 units of affordable housing in seven years, when the federal
agency kept adding mandates on top of the original agreement, he fought
back.
“The charge that Westchester would ever, ever tolerate or condone
discrimination is patently false, and we have said that from day-one,
and that includes as our communities as well,” he said. “It
was very important, at times to at times fight with HUD because of their
unwarranted intrusion into local zoning and into community.”
Astorino said HUD rejected the county’s analysis of impediments
10 times, but the county’s consultant studies found the county never
practiced exclusionary housing.
He said the county has actually exceeded the agreed upon 750 units of
new affordable housing in eligible communities at a cost of $51.6 million
by having permits in place for 799 units, another 100 units are in the
pipeline and 427 units are occupied.
The need for affordable housing has not gone away, though, said Board
of Legislators’ Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, who said the county
would continue to build affordable housing “in all of Westchester’s
communities in a way that makes sense from a planning perspective without
the imposition of quotas and directives from Washington.”
