Affordable housing report: No fines, no extra units

Westchester County shouldn't be held in contempt of court nor should it face fines and other penalties for its actions in an affordable-housing settlement, a U.S. magistrate judge said in a report and recommendation issued Thursday.

The county settled a fair-housing lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2009 by agreeing to several terms, including building 750 units of affordable housing in 31 communities where black and Hispanic populations were less than 3 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

A court-appointed monitor said this summer that Westchester violated one of the conditions of the settlement and recommended penalties to the court that included forcing the county to build more housing above the 750, and monthly fines that could reach as high as $60,000.

“The U.S. magistrate’s ruling corrects the false narrative by the federal government that Westchester County has done anything wrong with respect to implementing the housing settlement,” County Executive Rob Astorino said in a statement.

County Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers, hailed Thursday's report as a victory for taxpayers and sanity.

“This is a real healthy dose of reasonableness and common sense,” he said.

Westchester was required to have 450 units with funding in place by the end of 2014. The county said it hit that mark, but the monitor asked that 28 units in a development called Chappaqua Station not be counted due to local opposition.

The monitor, attorney James E. Johnson, also said Westchester didn’t follow a provision in the settlement that said the county “shall use all available means” to ensure its required units were built, including offering incentives and pursuing legal action.

Westchester filed three objections to those findings, saying it was incorrect that the county missed the benchmark and didn't use all available means. The magistrate agreed with those objections, but disagreed with a third one that said Johnson failed to meet with the involved parties prior to submitting his report.

Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein said in his report he couldn't recommend contempt of court because the obligation to “use all available means” wasn’t clear and unambiguous.

The monitor and the U.S. Attorney's Office refused to identify to the court the full scope of Westchester's resistance to forcing towns and villages "to abandon excessively restrictive zoning," said Craig Gurian, executive director of the Anti Discrimination Center of Metro New York, the group that filed the original lawsuit that led to the settlement.

"They could have focused on the fact that Westchester has for years explicitly refused to litigate against any of the many municipalities who maintain exclusionary zoning," Gurian said in a statement.

The parties have 14 days to object to the magistrate's report. If objections are filed, they can be reviewed by the U.S. district court.

Westchester scrambled to approve financing for a number of housing developments in recent months and officials say they have already exceeded a year-end funding benchmark of 600 units by 30. The county also said 466 units have building permits, 59 short of its end-of-the-year requirements with 100 applications pending.

The county must have financing and permits in place for all 750 units by the end of 2016.

A HUD spokesman said the department couldn't comment on pending litigation.

Twitter: @marklungariello