Wednesday, February 12, 2014

JOURNAL NEWS UPDATE ON THE HUD HOUSING SETTLEMENT; CROTON REMAINS ON EXCLUSIONARY ZONING LIST; MAMARONECK IS TAKEN OFF

7/8/14 UPDATE http://everythingcroton.blogspot.com/2014/07/recent-hud-events-wrap-up.html

Welcome to Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton--our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools--in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.

THE FOLLOWING ARE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE JOURNAL NEW ARTICLE: MAMARONECK REMOVED FROM EXCLUSIONARY ZONING LIST

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT THE LINK PROVIDED BELOW.

JOURNAL NEWS 2/12/14
--After rezoning large parts of town to permit multifamily housing and changing laws to require more affordable apartments, the town of Mamaroneck has been taken off the list of communities with exclusionary zoning under the 2009 Westchester fair housing settlement.

--The county has repeatedly asserted that there is no exclusionary zoning in Westchester and HUD has rejected its analyses as inadequate.

--But with Mamaroneck’s rezoning in September and a new affordable housing code passed in November, the monitor, Jim Johnson, a lawyer with Debevoise & Plimpton in Manhattan, said the town is off the list.

--“The passage of these amendments are two great strides in the Town of Mamaroneck’s provision of opportunities for affordable housing development and its ability to meet the most recent and best available estimate of its share of regional affordable housing need,” Johnson wrote. 

--The Mamaroneck rezoning increased the amount of land zoned for multifamily housing without a special permit. The six communities still labeled exclusionary by the monitor are Croton-on-Hudson, Harrison, Lewisboro, Ossining, Pelham Manor and Pound Ridge. Several of the towns have met with the monitor, and Ossining and Croton have had several followup meetings. 

READ THE LENGTHY ARTICLE HERE
http://www.lohud.com/article/20140212/NEWS02/302120043/Mamaroneck-taken-off-fed-s-exclusionary-zoning-list

With respect to my latest foil request regarding these meetings between the village and the HUD monitor, I am still waiting. UPDATED: I have received a response to my latest foil on this issue: NO DOCUMENTS EXIST.


I have submitted another foil for the past two weeks until today's date. Will keep you posted. 

ALSO NOTE: THE MONITOR HAS UPDATED HIS WEBSITE AS OF 2/10/14 WITH THE FOLLOWING REPORTS/LETTERS (although it says 2/10/13--it is actually for 2/10/14) http://www.westchesterhousingmonitor.org/zoning/2013-02-10---first-zoning-analysis-progress-report

YOU MAY ALSO HAVE AN INTEREST IN http://www.saveharmon.com/ NOW KNOWN AS HARMON WATCH- VILLAGE ADMITS TRUE INTENT OF RE-ZONING TO FEDERAL MONITOR AND MORE

5 comments:

  1. Harmon re-zoning has a special permit provision and this board was warned over and over again about how it would be a problem for us. 2014 is going to be an interesting year for sure.

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  2. Croton has had several followup meetings.
    Thanks, village, for keeping your taxpaying saps informed.

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    1. 90% of what we do know, we only know because we have submitted freedom of information requests. That's just the way it is. I encourage residents who cannot get answers from this board--or who mistrust the answers they get--to use the foil process whenever possible. It's not perfect and the law has no teeth, but it is all we have.

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    2. Well that's true a lot of time. Anyway the feds do prefer as of right housing that is without a special permit. Will we have to do the rezoning for Harmon over you think since the special permit is a problem? What this does tell everyone is what some of us always knew: you don't mess with your zoning and you especially don't mess with it to create housing. We're a village of homes, some large, some small, some grand, some simple, with a smattering of apartments. That's what a lot of us preferred and that's why a lot of us stay or came here in the first place. It will be a hard lesson when Croton ends up with something we don't want and which meets the "regional needs". We're lucky we have Astorino as County Exec and a lot of people understood that this last election.

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