Westchester legislators get boost in efforts to break log jam on fair housing settlement
Elizabeth Ganga
The court monitor overseeing Westchester County’s fair housing case has agreed to complete the analysis that has become the major sticking point in the implementation of the 2009 fair housing settlement with the federal government.
Though several hurdles remain, the work could help resolve the major impasse that has sent the case back to court and led the federal government to withhold about $20 million in grants from the county.kapsettlement052814
An analysis of whether local zoning excludes black and Hispanic residents has been holding up the settlement for years as the county has submitted hundreds of pages of information and the Department of Housing and Urban Development has said the county’s analysis is inadequate. The county stopped work on the analysis months ago.
The monitor, Jim Johnson, a lawyer with Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, is doing the analysis at the request of the Westchester Board of Legislators, which is stepping into the middle of the settlement dispute to try to break the impasse between the county and the feds.
http://polhudson.lohudblogs.com/2014/05/28/westchester-legislators-get-boost-efforts-break-log-jam-fair-housing-settlement/