Westchester County entered into a landmark desegregation agreement onMonday that would compel it to create hundreds of houses and apartmentsfor moderate-income people in overwhelmingly white communities andaggressively market them to nonwhites in Westchester and New York City.(emphasis added)
The agreement, if ratified by the county’s Board of Legislators, wouldsettle a lawsuit filed by an antidiscrimination group [send an email] and could becomea template for increased scrutiny of local governments’ housingpolicies by the Obama administration.
“This is consistent with the president’s desire to see a fullyintegrated society,” said Ron Sims, the deputy secretary of housing andurban development, which helped broker the settlement along with theJustice Department. “Until now, we tended to lay dormant. This ishistoric, because we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire.”
The agreementcalls for the county to spend more than $50 million of its own money,in addition to other funds, to build or acquire 750 homes orapartments, 630 of which must be provided in towns and villages whereblack residents constitute 3 percent or less of the population andHispanic residents make up less than 7 percent. The 120 other spacesmust meet different criteria for cost and ethnic concentration.
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No communitieshave been chosen to receive the homes, officials said. But according tothe Anti-Discrimination Center, more than two dozen predominantly whitetowns or villages are eligible, including Bedford, Bronxville,Eastchester, Hastings-on-Hudson, Harrison, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, NewCastle, Pelham Manor, Rye and Scarsdale.