Tarrytown Timid Over Housing Settlement Details

Tarrytown is taking a cautious approach to the county's new guidelines for doling out federal grants.

The village, like most places in Westchester, receives federal money through Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). But recently, there's been a catch – since Westchester County distributes the money, it's attached new guidelines aimed at increasing affordable housing as per the county's affordable housing implementation plan.

"There were always strings attached (to CDBGs) and they were all outlined and they were clear," said Village Administrator Michael Blau. "Now they want us to agree with something, and we don't know what we're agreeing to."

According to the county, if towns and villages want the grant money for projects, they'll have to agree to give the county the first pick of property within town borders, and they'll have to agree to a "model zoning ordinance" – legal-speak that means towns would have to make sure 10 percent of homes constructed in the village count as affordable housing.

But the county's affordable housing implementation plan has not been finalized, so signing on to abide by the plan is seen as a risk by village officials.

For Tarrytown, not signing on has put in jeopardy $35,000 in CDBG money that was earmarked for a new play structure at Patriots Park. The new playground is being designed by Westchester County and would have included a train-like play structure for children age 2-5.

"The whole process could negatively impact upon the CDBG program," Blau said. "We really don't know what were signing on for, this is potentially a problem that everyone (municipalities) will be having."

For its part, Westchester County is between a federal court and a hard place.

The Anti-Discrimination Center sued the county last year, and a federal judge ruled Westchester had "utterly failed" to provide what the court calls "fair housing." The court ruled Westchester didn't provide fair housing despite taking federal money -- not only did the county not build enough affordable homes, but it failed to follow rules that say those units must be built in otherwise ethnically monochrome neighborhoods.

Westchester has a dozen towns where African Americans make up fewer than one percent of the population, and another eight towns where they're less than two percent of the population, said Craig Gurian, executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center. But according to recent census estimates, African Americans are 14 percent of the overall population here.

"The county is just characterized by racial segregation," Gurian said. "And there's been an unwillingness to recognize that."

But Tarrytown is just barely a target for the affordable housing settlement. According to the 2000 census, white people make up 77 percent of the village population, followed by 16 percent Latino and 7 percent African American. That puts Tarrytown outside the range of what the federal government calls "A" towns – places where African Americans are less than three percent of the population, and Latinos are less than seven percent.

"We are certainly not opposed to affordable housing," Tarrytown Mayor Drew Fixell said. "We have a pretty diverse community racially and ethnically and we're just on the borderline of this settlement."

Westchester has had a year to comply with the federal court order to build 750 fair housing units, and on Aug. 9 it submitted its third plan after the previous two had been rejected. One former county plan involved building fair housing units on a street with a psychiatric facility and a veteran's administration, but no homes. But the language in the consent decree is specific -- the county is required to build affordable housing, and it's required to put most of the units in uniformly white towns and neighborhoods.

Those uniformly white neighborhoods are in towns like Scarsdale and Eastchester, which "could certainly expect" to see new developments as the county looks to satisfy the federal consent decree, Gurian said.

At the heart of the issue is what the court calls "desegregation potential," and Gurian said that potential can't be reached with homes "if you don't put them in a place with the lowest concentration of African Americans and Latinos."

"Let's say hypothetically there was a little piece of Port Chester that was, what should we call it, the super-white part?" Gurian said. "On a municipal level, [government] is not supposed to be perpetuating patterns that facilitate segregation."

Fixell noted that this issue is also a concern for the village because the municipality would not be able to implement programs for low-income families already living and working in Tarrytown.

"The settlement would due away with local preference," Fixell said. "In the past communities that have built affordable housing have given first bid to local residents and employees. The concern is that the consequence of that is it continues to result in segregation. It's a question of whether you can give extra points (to local residents); and it appears that they will not allow that."

The county is waiting to hear what happens next after submitting their third revision of an unaffordable housing implementations plan. A county spokeswoman did not respond to a press inquiry on Monday.

It's unlikely the federal monitor assigned to oversee the court order will allow Westchester to go back to the drawing board for a fourth time, which means the next plan might be one mandated by the court. Gurian said he faults both former County Executive Andy Spano, and current honcho Rob Astorino, describing them – and county lawmakers – as uncooperative. But by mid September, their time may have run out.

In the meantime, a dozen or so mayors will try to figure out how to get grant money that's been promised to their towns – without handing over local authority to White Plains.

That meeting of the Westchester Urban County Council is expected t convene later this month.