Facing a Thursday deadline for approving a historic desegregation Settlement Order, the Westchester County Legislature gave the necessary final approvals early Wednesday morning. The Settlement Order was the result of the groundbreaking False Claims Act case brought by the Anti-Discrimination Center ("ADC") in 2006. A highly-respected federal District Court Judge in Manhattan, who earlier this year ruled that Westchester had "utterly failed" to meet its obligations to analyze, identify, and overcome barriers to fair housing choice, will retain jurisdiction over the parties throughout the course of the seven-year agreement.
Even as ADC and other civil rights groups celebrate the potential of the Settlement Order, however, ADC is deeply concerned about the likelihood of attempts to evade the letter and spirit of the Order. Over the last several weeks, various County and municipal representatives from both Executive and Legislative branches of government have made clear their unwillingness: (a) to confront the exclusionary zoning that is central to the difficulty in developing affordable housing; (b) to recognize the fact that Westchester is characterized by high levels of residential racial segregation; and (c) to accept the profound seriousness of the County's failures to recognize and overcome the barriers to fair housing choice.
Judge Cote had found that the affirmatively furthering fair housing ("AFFH") requirement "was not a mere boilerplate formality, but rather was a substantive requirement, rooted in the history and purpose of the fair housing laws and regulations." She had also found that every AFFH certification by Westchester over a six-year period was "false or fraudulent." Yet some Westchester officials still use the term "technicality" to describe the County's violations and "garbage" to describe the lawsuit. It is no surprise, therefore, that much Legislative discussion in recent days has focused on how the County could avoid penalties for non-compliance with the terms of the Order.
Craig Gurian, ADC's Executive Director said: "HUD and the Court-appointed Monitor have been put on clear notice. County officials remain at best deeply reluctant to use the tools at their command to take on the municipal resistance that is at the root of the lack of affordable housing in highly White municipalities. As such, the promise of the Settlement Order - both for expanding the geography of opportunity in Westchester and for catalyzing other jurisdictions throughout the country into making serious efforts to eliminate barriers to fair housing choice -- depends entirely on HUD and the Monitor promptly demonstrating a firm resolve to enforce the letter and the spirit of the Settlement Order in all its respects."
"We are particularly concerned about the effect that a ‘go slow' or ‘see no evil' approach would have on those Towns and Villages who are thinking of proceeding in a spirit of good-faith cooperation," Gurian continued. "Such Towns and Villages need a system that rewards their cooperation with enhanced input into the Implementation Plan, and that makes clear that neither the County nor the federal Government will tolerate those other Towns and Villages who hope they can continue business as usual."
Extensive information about the case and the settlement is available here.
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Note: ADC's lead counsel throughout the litigation was the nationally recognized civil rights firm of Relman & Dane, and ADC thanks Relman & Dane's Michael Allen and his colleagues for all their fine work. Subsequent to Judge Cote's grant of ADC's partial motion for summary judgment at the end of February 2009, HUD and the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York became deeply involved in brokering a settlement of the matter. In August, 2009, U.S. Attorney filed a complaint-in-intervention of the United States against Westchester County, thereby placing the federal Government at the ready to litigate the case with ADC had final settlement approval not been achieved. ADC thanks both HUD and the U.S. Attorney's office for all their efforts.