Despite 2009 Deal, Affordable Housing Roils Westchester
By PETER APPLEBOME
WHITE PLAINS — When Westchester County agreed to a far-reaching affordable housing agreement in 2009, federal officials heralded a new era for desegregation in communities around the country.
“This is consistent with the president’s desire to see a fully integrated society,” said Ron Sims, then the deputy secretary with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Until now, we tended to lay dormant. This is historic, because we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire.”
But rather than signaling a transformative moment, the settlement has led to an often rancorous tug of war, complicated by politics and real estate prices in one of the nation’s wealthiest areas, where the residents include notables like Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The result is raising questions about Westchester’s commitment to complying with the agreement and just what a “fully integrated society” might mean, cost and look like in a largely developed suburban county. ...
Westchester is ahead of schedule in building the 750 affordable residences required by the settlement, but there are complaints that rather than representing true economic and racial integration, many of the housing units are far from the heart of affluent white communities. Westchester and HUD remain at a testy impasse over the county’s responsibility to ensure that its towns and villages end exclusionary zoning practices.
The deal was that Westchester County took $52 million in federal funds for affordable housing, spent them in low rent parts of the county, and now the feds want to use that to force the high rent municipalities within the County to diversify.
After a federal judge ruled that the county had “utterly failed” to meet its obligations, it agreed to the settlement. The deal required the county to spend $51.6 million to build 750 units of affordable housing in 31 overwhelmingly white communities within seven years, and to market those units to nonwhites aggressively. ... The settlement also required the county to “use all available means as appropriate” to promote nondiscriminatory housing, including pushing towns and villages to alter zoning rules that discouraged the construction of apartments. Pound Ridge, for example, covers 23.5 square miles, but no land is zoned for multifamily use.
... The monitor and HUD had argued that Mr. Astorino violated the settlement when he vetoed the bill, which would have prohibited landlords from discriminating against tenants who receive housing subsidies. ...
Craig Gurian, executive director of the group that sued the county, said much of the housing that had been approved or proposed was adjacent to low-income communities in neighboring towns or otherwise isolated from the rest of the wealthier community.
The proposal for Chappaqua, home of the Clintons, calls for what would be the tallest building in the town, dropped into a no-man’s land between railroad tracks, a highway and a bridge. New housing completed in Rye hugs the border of largely minority Port Chester, across two busy highways from the rest of Rye. Forty-six units scheduled for Larchmont sit in a virtually unpopulated block behind a strip mall, squeezed in against railroad tracks and Interstate 95.
Not surprisingly, New York Times readers have a lot to say on this article. One liberal reader even has started to get a clue about the high-low squeeze play against the middle in the name of diversity:
RMC
NYC
I live in Chappaqua, and will take bets that the "tallest building in town" will never get built. First, the NYT article neglects to mention that the railroad tracks run through the center of town. Residents of the proposed building would not be isolated from others in Chappaqua, since people live on both sides of the bridge that runs over the tracks. The building, however, would be a hideous eyesore that would blight what is in reality a small hamlet, not a "town." "Town" is three blocks long and one block wide. To build the proposed development would be like erecting a Levittown in Greenwich Village.
Nor is Chappaqua opposed to racial diversity; on the contrary, this is a town of Democrats, and people welcome diversity. The problem is that the HUD settlement -- and I never thought I'd side with a Republican -- has brought every avaricious developer within 100 miles running into Westchester, shouting "racist" at anyone who opposes his or her aesthetically insensitive, environmentally unsafe, shoddy development plan. The Chappaqua proposal purports to comply with federal and state environmental regulations but, in a letter to our local online newsletter, newcastlenow.org, several local architects and lawyers pointed out numerous ways in which it does not.
The HUD deal is a clumsy way of achieving social equality that has not promoted diversity, but rather left residents helpless in the face of greedy developers. It should be thrown out.
And here's a useful suggestion ...
Rich
Reston, VA
Or better yet, chop a couple of acres off the Clinton's estate in Chappaqua and put either 24 townhouses or an eight-story apartment on that site for affordable housing. With the Secret Service already there, there's even no need to burden Chappaqua with having to fund extra police.
And it's all legal, thanks to the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Kelo vs. City of New London that the government can seize private property when it benefits the public.
A win-win for everyone -- problem solved!
My attempt to popularise referring to Clinton as the "Chappaqua dick" didn't flourish, alas. Perhaps people didn't see the joke?
ReplyDeletei know the last is a comment is a 'wishful joke; but that what needs to be done - make liberals start directly paying for what they advocate: Chris Matthews lives in a 95% white suburb. Bring somali refugees to his street.
ReplyDeleteA book that belongs alongside 1984, brave new world, etc is "camp of the saints' One of the last scenes when all hell is breaking lose has one of media 'liberal crusaders' quietly heading for switzerland when he realizes, that..gulp. they are actually implementing his policies.
Frankfurt School
ReplyDeleteScales Fall---
Some of the comments discussed how it wasn't right that people who worked hard to live in an upscale place to have this forced upon them...
ReplyDeleteSection 8 has been going on for decades.
Were the working poor, the working class, middle-middle et al., less deserving of a community of their choice?
I don't recall any such concerns.
" but that what needs to be done - make liberals start directly paying for what they advocate: Chris Matthews lives in a 95% white suburb. Bring somali refugees to his street."
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. That first commenter seems to not understand why people turn conservative. I hope he finds out.
The wealthy elite are immune to accusations of hypocrisy. Don't waste you breath, or your keystrokes, trying to shame them. I wouldn't doubt for a minute that the person deriding predatory developers is the wife of a wealthy contractor - Westchester is teeming with them.
ReplyDeleteCommenters, comment away - you're just assholes - the kind of assholes who doubt other's concerns for architectural harmony and environmental stresses.
Boise is looking better all the time.
ReplyDelete"Nor is Chappaqua opposed to racial diversity; on the contrary, this is a town of Democrats, and people welcome diversity."
ReplyDeleteI loved that line. Made my whole day.
The parents of those living in these rich white suburbs were probably the first generation of white flight who left the cities for the suburbs in the 50s and 60s. Now their kids have grown up apart from the wonders of diversity and have come to believe all the hype/lies. Now they have to larn all the lessons their parents learnt when they fled to the suburbs in the first place.
ReplyDelete"Ron Sims, then the deputy secretary with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 'Until now, we tended to lay dormant. This is historic, because we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire.'"
ReplyDeleteOf course, Comrade Commissar Sims! By all means, let the state "hold people's feet to the fire."!
Don't your love the "until now, we tended to lay dormant" Big Lie? Since FDR, when have the apparatchiks, nomenklatura, bien pensant, and commissariats - and now czars - of social engineering lain dormant?!
Speaking of Great White Presidefendants...
ReplyDeleteVery simple solution for diversity. Have the money to go for maid's quarters
ReplyDeleteDiversity has many meanings. When liberals say they like diversity, they mean they want more browns, yellows, and muslims to keep down the number of blacks.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, diversity is better than lots of blacks. I'd rather live in a community that is 20% white, 20% hispanic, 20% asian, 20% arab, and 20% black than 50% white and 50% black.
Assistant Village Idiot beat me to it. That sentence is the best indicator ever of the general thinking in certain sectors:
ReplyDelete"Nor is Chappaqua opposed to racial diversity; on the contrary, this is a town of Democrats, and people welcome diversity."
And even moreso when they actually don't.
On the one hand, I really hope these people get theirs good and hard, but on the other, I live in a bucolic, low density, low crime, absolutely beautiful NYC exurb, and this sort of thing scares the shit out of me...
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase Tony Blair's former adviser who wrote that Labour wanted to "rub the right's nose in diversity", I would very much like to see Chappaqua, a town of Democrats, have its collective nose rubbed in diversity
ReplyDelete"Diversity has many meanings. When liberals say they like diversity, they mean they want more browns, yellows, and muslims to keep down the number of blacks."
ReplyDeleteI don't think they are smart enough to want that. Most liberals simply don't associate most NAMS with the vision of people such as those they see on the news who populate places like New Orleans, Detroit, LA, Chicago, Philly, etc.
To them, those are simply people in a movie.
The diversity they do seek is full of blacks and browns and yellows and Muslims who are very well educated. IOWs, they welcome elite NAMs, but they think WE wouldn't welcome anyone with a dark skin color. Yes, they very much think that the reason the rest of us are so upset is simply because of skin color.
A-holes.
Diversity is worse in the suburbs. If you walk through Sutton Place in Manhattan, you have to dodge the doormen, and the camera's eye. In the 'burbs when a suspicious character is wandering around, you are, as the train said to Davey (of Davey and Goliath), "all alone, all alone, all alone"
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, back in Stanford, while the neighborhood watch captain was unavailable for undisclosed reasons*...
ReplyDelete(*Jesus H. Christ, ladies and Germs; my job here is challenging and thankless enough; now I have to carry your workload also!?!?!?)
That's right. If there were a law that every advocate of section 8 housing must live next to it, there would be no section 8 hosing advocates left in what - 6 months?
ReplyDelete""Nor is Chappaqua opposed to racial diversity; on the contrary, this is a town of Democrats, and people welcome diversity."
ReplyDeleteI loved that line. Made my whole day."
As long as the diversity conforms to our stringent guidelines for how to act and behave in ALLES situations.
It it were not already clear that "liberalism" is anti-white racism in action, this story would be Exhibit 14,583.
ReplyDeleteThis is hilarious. We should all go on the comment section of the Times and try to subtlely bait the white liberals to express what they really know, deep down...
ReplyDeleteDiversity is also worse in the suburbs & small towns because of size and density issues. Chicago, Sanford, FL, and Seneca, SC (home of most recent B-on-W hate crime) are all about 1/3 black, but the size of Chicago means there is a large self-contained "white city" in the city limits which makes it easier to avoid unpleasantness. Diversity can reach out and harm you more easily when it doesn't have to cross too many streets. More people are discovering this with the Section 8ing of the suburbs.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's a useful suggestion ...
ReplyDeleteOr, just say that if you want to move to Chappaqua then you have to be able to spell it correctly. That should keep a lot of people out.
"Were the working poor, the working class, middle-middle et al., less deserving of a community of their choice?"
ReplyDeletePretty much. Living away from NAMs is a privilege of rich. Everyone else gets screwed (too often literally).
I grew up in an affluent town in Westchester. I am really glad that the schools I went to didn't feature the NAM thug bullies that so are so common in America, and that my family didn't have to keep an eye out for NAM burglars. But the diversitycrats apparently will not rest until every white American is cowed in fear from their NAM enforcer militia.
ReplyDeleteSection 8 is really about the worst welfare program there is. By it's nature it breeds a permanent multi-generational welfare culture; once they get it they never leave. In turn it entrenches all the diversity stereotypes out there, images the do-gooders are trying to dispel even as their work reinforces the reality of them. Blacks get a disproportionate share of the freebies and should be held to getting no more than what their percentage of the population happens to be.
ReplyDeleteIf they are going to have such a program it should be limited to seniors and disabled on fixed incomes. That would make it more palatable to most people.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
ReplyDeleteThe Revolution always eats its own. They never learn.
Aster: Some of the comments discussed how it wasn't right that people who worked hard to live in an upscale place to have this forced upon them...
I expect the trickle of articles+comments like this to increase in volume substantially in coming days.
I recall a similar set from somewhere in California not long ago. And in the abstract, I could sympathize. I got the impression that these were bright people who had worked very, very hard to get what they had. But does anyone have the slightest doubt that these were people who had assiduously promoted all of the policies that were making life less and less pleasant for the decent, hard-working, if not-as-bright or talented people, lower down on the totem pole?
Can anyone tell me the exact moment when Americans came to accept that decent, productive folks in the humbler income deciles musn't expect, because they hadn't "earned", conditions of safety and non-squalor in their modest neighborhoods? Because it wasn't always like that.
The parents of those living in these rich white suburbs were probably the first generation of white flight who left the cities for the suburbs in the 50s and 60s. Now their kids have grown up apart from the wonders of diversity and have come to believe all the hype/lies. Now they have to larn all the lessons their parents learnt when they fled to the suburbs in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it goes, on and on, until there is nowhere left to hide.
It is similiar to the North Shore of Chicago. Lots of rich liberals ready to preach about diversity from their lily white communities.
ReplyDeleteA 14-year-old Jimmy ("James") Page playing in bluegrass band (and being interviewed) on BBC television in 1957. He was "just learning guitar...from a teacher." He aspired to be a biologist doing cancer research.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfZ1AEdfd1o
i know the last is a comment is a 'wishful joke; but that what needs to be done - make liberals start directly paying for what they advocate: Chris Matthews lives in a 95% white suburb. Bring somali refugees to his street.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I'm imagining some kind of political index that can target diversity to those who advocate it most. Democrats, liberals, the wealthy, politicians, academics, the media, wealthy Democat pols, etc.
The wealthy elite are immune to accusations of hypocrisy. Don't waste you breath, or your keystrokes, trying to shame them. I wouldn't doubt for a minute that the person deriding predatory developers is the wife of a wealthy contractor - Westchester is teeming with them.
Commenters, comment away - you're just assholes - the kind of assholes who doubt other's concerns for architectural harmony and environmental stresses.
This isn't about whether they're immune to accusations of hypocrisy (though they are anything but). This is about a banner to rally around. I think the 95% of voters who aren't able to afford to live in places like the tonier parts of Westchester can all get behind the idea of starting "diversity" at the top. Can you say "plebiscite"? How about "community organizing"?
"Rich White Liberal Privilege"?
"Disparate Impact"
"Implicit Racism"?
Sure, I knew you could.
On the one hand, I really hope these people get theirs good and hard, but on the other, I live in a bucolic, low density, low crime, absolutely beautiful NYC exurb, and this sort of thing scares the shit out of me...
Assuming it isn't a "5%-er" area, I'm sure you can get behind my "$@!$ the 5%-ers" plan. If it is, well, sorry. Better get organizin'.
To paraphrase Tony Blair's former adviser who wrote that Labour wanted to "rub the right's nose in diversity", I would very much like to see Chappaqua, a town of Democrats, have its collective nose rubbed in diversity
Hey, nice one. I'm tempted to name this the "rub the diversity advocates' noses in diversity first" plan. But something tells me we need a name Orwell could be proud of, like "Affirmative Action." "Direct Diversity"?
What else is new? The white lower classes died for your sins. Building low cost housing is actually an economic waste and has a negative impact on the environment. What they should actually do in Westchester is simply move poor people into the existing homes of registered Democrats. People with homes of 3500 square feet or better have more than enough space to house Lakeesha, her 4 children and the occasional boyfriend. They can build a separate entrance if they desire.
ReplyDeleteI say Democrats above but in reality this hypocrisy about race stretches across the political lines in the upper classes. They have what might, if any of them were gentlemen, be called a gentlemen's agreement not to rag on each other about it in front of the "help." Thus they both get to enjoy a segregated lifestyle. This is a large part of the answer to the question of why the Left never really goes after organizations like "National Review" on the issue of race, and why "National Review" never really talks about race.
Truth said..."
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, back in Stanford, while the neighborhood watch captain was unavailable for undisclosed reasons*...
Truth: Hey, this is funny--white guy got bashed with a hammer!
[Link to article about two blacks arrested for the attack on a white now on life support]
(*Jesus H. Christ, ladies and Germs; my job here is challenging and thankless enough; now I have to carry your workload also!?!?!?)"
Your first impression at the attack with a hammer of a white person is to make jocular remarks?
Truth said...
"Your first impression at the shooting of 49 people is to make a joke...and you're concerned about Barry?
3/24/12 5:25 PM"
Truth: This is serious business--blacks got shot!
No hypocrisy there. It's just what I'd expect a race man to do.
Also applies to Asians!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/fashion/more-asian-americans-marrying-within-their-race.html?_r=1
If President Romney does something especially nice for the black folks, we may see a new generation with names like Mittavious, LaWillard and DeMittRe.
ReplyDeleteCuz we all know he ain't gonna do nothing for whitey, that's for sure!
So, is there some within the law, marginally susceptible to being acceptable way for excluding undesirable people from your community without basing it directly on race or indirectly on income?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I can think of along these lines is the sex offender registry plus surrounding laws, which is used explicitly in some places to try to make the registered sex offenders give up and leave town. (Unfortunately, some large fraction of these guys are typically flashers or guys who f--ked their 16 year old girlfriend when they were 19 or something, and are no threat to anyone.)
I'm sure it would rn afoul of all kinds of laws, but imagine if you couldn't move into some neighborhood if you had a felony record--by itself, that would keep a fair number of potential horrible neighbors out of your neighborhood. (You would have to deal with people convicted of felonies after they moved in somehow.).
svigor wrote, "Hey, nice one. I'm tempted to name this the "rub the diversity advocates' noses in diversity first" plan. But something tells me we need a name Orwell could be proud of, like "Affirmative Action." "Direct Diversity"?"
ReplyDeleteGiven that we know what diversity means, less or even no whites, maybe we should call it 'Duplicitous Diversity'.
Weren't they having this same problem in Woodstock? A tour of Section 8 hoods' around DC would terrify these Nice White Ladies.
ReplyDeleteToday I was driving through one of the most beautiful communities in Alexandria, VA and the scene was almost Rockwellesque. Kids on bikes, girls walking to lacrosse and field hockey practice in front of classic stone homes. The lawns are perfectly manicured and every driveway has a 50,000 dollar car.
A 10 minute walk away is total NAM dysfunction. Streets and yards covered in trash including used diapers, airplane liquor bottles and used tissues. Bus stops where homeless camp and the ever loitering, unemployable masses chewing cud in front of their apt complex. The gang graffiti isn't too noticeable but it's becoming more apparent.
Prior to Section 8 this area was working class whites and it was presentable, now it's just a nightmare.
"RMC NYC I live in Chappaqua, and will take bets that the "tallest building in town" will never get built." - This is true because people with real power, the ones who don't prefer to broadcast their influence in editorial comments, will stop it. They are realist who are not above buying off Jesse or Al.
ReplyDelete"Residents of the proposed building would not be isolated from others in Chappaqua, since people live on both sides of the bridge that runs over the tracks.". Probably hogwash. The "out of sight" wealthy don't generally live by the tracks.
" The building, however, would be a hideous eyesore that would blight what is in reality a small hamlet, not a "town.". Why does living in a hamlet make your eyes more sensitive? Are "town" dwellers conditioned to ignore eyesores? Besides, you'll have a greater diverse to native ratio. Lucky you.
"To build the proposed development would be like erecting a Levittown in Greenwich Village." So putting a bunch of tiny houses with yards in the midst of brownstones and lofts is equivalent to putting an apartment building amongst a bunch of mansions. I don't get it. Okay, so let's not put an apartment building in your hamlet. Let's put in some nice brownstone and loft apartments, like East New York.
"Nor is Chappaqua opposed to racial diversity; on the contrary, this is a town of Democrats, and people welcome diversity.". I thought you said it was a hamlet. Now that you concede it is a town, there's room for Diversity. The diverse will be disappointed though, they thought they'd be the first minorities to say they live in a hamlet.
"The problem is that the HUD settlement -- and I never thought I'd side with a Republican -- has brought every avaricious developer within 100 miles running into Westchester, shouting "racist" at anyone who opposes his or her aesthetically insensitive, environmentally unsafe, shoddy development plan.". You're right, I'm sure it's the corruption that bothers you, so get Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity to build the brownstones - don't forget the courtyards, folks need a place to unwind (Wait until you see the fun that goes on in the projects' courtyards.)
Maybe you can get 2000 units for the same price.
"The Chappaqua proposal purports to comply with federal and state environmental regulations but, in a letter to our local online newsletter, newcastlenow.org, several local architects and lawyers pointed out numerous ways in which it does not.". What a great team to assist Jimmy with design and planning. I'm sure they'll be willing to put in the pro bono hours. Also, I'm sure your lovely little website can use some flavor. I looked at it and it is a little milquetoast.
"The HUD deal is a clumsy way of achieving social equality that has not promoted diversity, but rather left residents helpless in the face of greedy developers." How many divisions do developers have? Uncle Sam is asking for your help, will you turn your back on him?
" It should be thrown out.". It won't hurt that bad. I suggest toughening up the kids. A few summers in Far Rockaway instead of at The Club might help.
"I'd rather live in a community that is 20% white, 20% hispanic, 20% asian, 20% arab, and 20% black than 50% white and 50% black."
ReplyDeleteWow...you really hate white!
"Your first impression at the attack with a hammer of a white person is to make jocular remarks?"
ReplyDeleteI didn't know he was white...jeez, that is funny now!
91.80% White, 0.94% African American, 0.03% Native American, 5.62% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.52% from other races, and 1.07% from two or more races.
ReplyDeleteThanks Wikipedia.
How many is .94% of a hamlet? Does Tiger keep a house here? This is Diversity to celebrate.
"I didn't know he was white...jeez, that is funny now!"
ReplyDeleteI would figure you know the rules by now:
Unidentified Victim = white
Unidentified Perpetrator = NAM
Just thought I'd help out.
Better get your name on that list for Chappaqua housing. My money says they'll be gone quick. Call the fellas, let them know.