WHITE PLAINS—The Housing Monitor overseeing the $56.1-million federal fair housing case settlement with Westchester County issued a report on Sept. 8 that charged six municipalities in the county with engaging in exclusionary zoning.

Those zoning practice foster clustering of two-family and multifamily housing into disproportionally high minority household areas and/or restrict two-family and multifamily development that are popular with minorities.

Housing Monitor James Johnson, a partner with law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, LP of New York City, found Harrison, Larchmont, Lewisboro, North Castle, Pelham Manor and Rye Brook to have some or several forms of exclusionary zoning under an analysis of the Huntington standard that considers whether zoning codes have a discriminatory impact on racial and ethnic minorities.

Johnson in his 120-page report termed the findings as preliminary, but stated that he would be meeting with the six municipalities regarding the violations.

While noting that the Huntington study, performed by John Shaprio and Brian Kintish of the Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, found 25 of the 31 eligible municipalities did not have exclusionary zoning, Johnson stated, “There is prima facie evidence however, that the remaining six municipalities have zoning codes that are presumptively exclusionary under the Huntington standard. These municipalities have zoning regulations that either: perpetuate clustering by restricting multifamily or two-family housing to districts that have disproportionally minority household populations; or disparately impact the County minority household population by restricting the development of housing types most often used by minority residents.”

Johnson is the court-appointed housing monitor charged with overseeing the federal fair housing case settlement reached in 2009 that calls for Westchester County to build 750 new units of housing in 31 communities. The settlement, stemming from a housing desegregation lawsuit brought by the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York filed against Westchester County in 2006, was approved by the Westchester County Board of Legislators and signed by then Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano.

Since taking office in 2010, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino has been at odds with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and Johnson over terms of the settlement, charging that HUD has imposed requirements beyond the scope of the settlement. HUD has rejected eight Analysis of Impediments (AIs) filed by the county and has deemed the county in breach of the settlement and has withheld and reallocated more than $7 million in Community Development Block Grant funds earmarked for Westchester County municipalities. Another approximately $5 million in CDBG funding is in jeopardy of being lost in coming weeks. The county and HUD are in court over the taking and reallocation of the CBDG funds. Westchester County has filed an appeal of a lower court ruling that backed HUD's reallocation of the funds.

Astorino is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at RealShare New York on Thursday, Oct. 9 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

Ned McCormack, a spokesman for County Executive and Republican gubernatorial nominee Astorino, says the county believes it is in compliance with the court settlement and in fact is ahead of schedule building the mandated affordable housing units.

In terms of the county's reaction to the latest zoning-related report from the Housing Monitor, McCormack, says that HUD and the Housing Monitor are “skewing the numbers” to make their case for exclusionary zoning practices, “We think this is an assault on home rule,” McCormack said. “We think they are using faulty data to back up their case, which is to counter our eight AIs which found no exclusionary zoning. They couldn't find it in these 26 (municipalities) and in these others we think it is manufactured data.”

Earlier this summer, the county reported that in connection with the housing settlement it had 407 housing units with financing in place; (450 is the court-mandated benchmark for this year); 404 units with building permits, which surpasses this year's benchmark of 350; 184 units occupied; $34 million of the county's $51.6 million budget committed; and $105 million leveraged from other sources (e.g. state, federal and foundation funds).

The latest zoning study by the Housing Monitor was initiated at the behest of Michael Kaplowitz, chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators, who is trying to save further federal CBDG funding earmarked for Westchester County from being reallocated elsewhere. Kaplowitz could not be reached for comment at press time. The Westchester County Board of Legislators is scheduled to discuss the housing settlement today with the housing monitor.