Planning Board Discusses Affordable Housing

A proposed ordinance would compel developers in Scarsdale to set aside 10 percent of new housing construction for low-income families and to market those units to minorities. 

The Planning Board  held a work session Wednesday night to discuss the ordinance and its possible effect on future development in the city.  

The ordinance's wording is modeled after  a Westchester County plan to build 750 units of  low- to moderate-income housing in the hopes of attracting "racially and ethnically diverse" families to the high-income, mostly white city.  It would affect housing developments as small as five to nine units and specifies that developments of more than that size would require that 10 percent of the units be for lower income households. 

Westchester County entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development to provide the units in order to settle a lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that high priced housing has the effect of excluding minorities, specifically African Americans and Latinos, from white communities. The lawsuit was settled in August of 2009. 

Under the agreement, the county agreed to pay fines to the U.S. government totaling $30 million and to set aside $51.6 million to develop new affordable units over the next seven years. At least 75 percent of the new units will be new construction. The units must be built in areas that have been mostly white until now.

Many communities have not adopted ordinances yet, although compliance with the county plan has already begun, with at least 100 units approved throughout Westchester, according to a report issued by James Johnson, the court-appointed monitor for the settlement.  The monitor was appointed to act as a go-between for the county and federal governments and to assure the county is acting within the ruling.

Each municipality affected by the agreement seeks to adjust the plan to fit its community's specific circumstances.  The monitor's report, issued April 25, granted an extension for adoption of the codes from January 30 to September 30 of this year.

The Planning Board struggled with where to locate  new construction, concentrating on two areas, the Village Center and Five Corners. Although there are currently buildings at these locations, they could be redeveloped as multi-family centers.

Other possible locations include Freightway and the Spencer/Christie block, though there are zoning issues at each site that might make it financially difficult to develop in those locations.  The Board looked at sites that are extremely unlikely to be developed, as well, including The Woman's Club, which is protected by its placement on the National Register of Historic Places, the French American School, and the Saxon Woods and Quaker Ridge golf courses.   It also considered several smaller plots of land, though none seemed promising for immediate development.

"We wanted to comply with the model ordinance," said Planning Board member Angela Sapienza.  "Our draft is very similar...yet it avoids excessive oversight."

Some of the land available for development in Scarsdale is owned by the county, so areas such as the Bronx River Parkway, for example, were not considered.

The court case that compelled the agreement with county was brought by the Anti-Discrimination Center of New York.  The Center says on its website that the county has not complied with the stipulations of the settlement, particularly in failing to address zoning as a core issue.