Astorino: “… unwarranted intrusion …”
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.
The county exec said Westchester 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.”
