Opinion ID: 500653
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence as to the City's Subsidized Housing Decisions

Text: 18 During the pertinent periods, Yonkers's governing body was its City Council (Council), comprising the mayor, elected in a City-wide election, and 12 councilmen, each elected by one of the City's 12 wards. The Yonkers Planning Board (Planning Board) consisted of seven nonpaid citizens appointed by the mayor. The Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority (MHA), a public corporation organized in the 1930's pursuant to New York State's Public Housing Law, was the entity authorized to propose, construct, and operate public housing in Yonkers. 19 Under state law, federal funding could not be requested for a site proposed by MHA until the site was either (1) approved by a majority vote of both the Planning Board and the Council, or (2) approved by at least three-quarters of the Council if less than a majority of the Planning Board approved. According to the testimony of one member of the Council, the opposition of any councilman to a project proposed for his own ward was routinely honored by the other Council members.
20 Prior to 1949, the City had erected two housing projects, both in Southwest Yonkers. The second came about apparently as community leaders' response to concerns expressed in the late 1930's about difficulties blacks were encountering in obtaining decent and affordable housing in the private market. Thus, the City resolved to build a public housing project 'for Negroes' and set about finding a suitable site on which to do so.... Various sites were rejected on the ground that the level of minority concentration there was not sufficiently high, and the site eventually selected in 1940 was in one of the most heavily minority areas of Southwest Yonkers. 624 F.Supp. at 1312. 21 In 1949, pursuant to the National Housing Act of 1949 (1949 Housing Act), ch. 338, 63 Stat. 413 (codified, as amended, at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1441 et seq. (1982)), which provided federal funds for urban renewal, the City applied for the reservation of funds to build 750 units of low-income housing. Its application was approved, but it was not to receive the funds until it had officially designated specific sites and these were approved by the federal Public Housing Administration (a predecessor of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (collectively HUD)). The City's initial deadline for submitting approved sites was August 31, 1950. In February 1950, MHA began proposing sites for the construction of these units. 22 MHA's first proposed site was a vacant, largely City-owned, parcel of land located in an overwhelmingly white area of Northwest Yonkers. The City's ownership and the nonuse of the land would have made it a relatively inexpensive building site and avoided any residential displacement and relocation problems. Neighborhood groups, however, swiftly opposed designation of this site, stating that the new housing would be occupied by persons coming from slum areas and that the old slums would continue to exist. The groups recommended clearance of the existing slum areas and the construction of new housing on those sites. The Planning Board rejected MHA's proposed site, citing the parcel's nonconformity with planning standards such as sufficiency of school and shopping facilities. 23 The next two sites proposed by MHA in 1950 were located in white neighborhoods of Southwest Yonkers. Initially, the councilmen of the two wards in which these sites were located recommended approval. As to one site, however, residents of the area appeared at a Planning Board meeting to express their opposition on the ground that the terrain was irregular and that the presence of such housing would tend to harm property values in the area; their councilman withdrew his support for the project, and the site was not approved. The other proposed site was initially approved by both the Planning Board and the Council. However, when an attempt was made to enlarge the approved area, community groups opposed both the enlargement and the original site designation, principally citing the likely deterioration of property values. Eventually, the councilman from this ward withdrew his support, the Planning Board voted unanimously to disapprove the requested expansion, and MHA abandoned its proposal for even the originally approved project. 24 By December 1950, the City had approved just one project, to which there had been no community opposition, for 274 units. Its site, previously zoned for industrial use, was in a section of Southwest Yonkers having one of the highest concentrations of minorities. 25 After all of the other MHA-proposed sites had been rejected, a federal official warned that the City would lose its reservation of funding for the remaining 476 units unless it acted to put additional units into development immediately. The City's response was to expand the previously approved Southwest Yonkers project to 415 units, notwithstanding a prior Planning Board recommendation that no more than 250 units be placed on any site. 26 In the period 1951 to 1953, MHA proposed 9 more sites for subsidized low-income housing in predominantly white neighborhoods, four in Southwest Yonkers and five in Northwest and East Yonkers. Eight of these proposals prompted vigorous opposition by community civic and social groups, who sent petitions and resolutions to the Planning Board and the councilmen, contending that such projects in their areas would lead to the eventual deterioration of the surrounding community by the element which they attract. None of MHA's proposed sites was approved by the City. 27 In the meantime, between 1,200 and 3,000 applications had been received for the 415 units that had been approved. Notwithstanding recognition by the Planning Board and the public of the desperate need for additional subsidized housing, no other sites were approved. The City thereby lost allocation of federal funds for the remaining 335 units of its original 750-unit allocation under the 1949 Housing Act. 28 In 1956, the City was able to renew its reservation of funds for 335 units, and MHA promptly proposed four new sites. One of these was quickly rejected because it was in the path of a proposed highway. The remaining three prompted strong community opposition. Two of these, including one described by HUD as extremely desirable for subsidized housing, were in all-white neighborhoods of East Yonkers. The residents of both areas vigorously voiced their opposition at rallies, in petitions, by telegram, and by attending Council meetings in numbers ranging from 400 to 1,000. The City rejected these two sites. 29 The fourth proposed site was in Runyon Heights, the predominantly black community in East Yonkers. Representatives of the neighborhood opposed the building of low-income housing there on the ground that predominantly white communities had successfully opposed having such projects in their neighborhoods and Runyon Heights should not be the only community in which such a project would be built. They contended that it would be preferable to integrate Runyon Heights into the communities surrounding it and that the placement of low-income housing in Runyon Heights would have the contrary effect of enhancing its racial isolation. The City rejected this site as well. 30 At least four other sites for low-income housing were formally considered in 1957; none was approved by the City. 31 In 1958, MHA proposed five sites, four new ones plus one that had previously been rejected because of conflicting highway plans. An MHA official described the sites to the Planning Board as  'the least objectionable' of those surveyed but nonetheless predicted that there would be  'a lot of objections on the grounds of race or age in certain sites.'  624 F.Supp. at 1299. 32 Two of MHA's proposed sites in Southwest Yonkers--one in a predominantly white area, and the other in a predominantly minority area--were disapproved by the Planning Board because they lay in the paths of proposed highways. The Council, however, by a three-fourths vote, overrode the Planning Board's opposition to these two sites; it approved family housing units for the site in the predominantly minority neighborhood and senior citizen units for the site in the predominantly white neighborhood. 33 The other three sites proposed by MHA in 1958 were approved by the Planning Board. Two of these sites were in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods, one in East Yonkers and described by the City's Planning Director as ideal in terms of transportation, shopping, recreation, and schools, and the other in Southwest Yonkers; the third site was in Runyon Heights. All met with opposition from the residents of their respective neighborhoods. From the two white areas, taxpayer and civic groups wrote their councilmen shortly before the Council was to vote, describing their general opposition as follows: 34 We personally prefer a public referendum with time to acquaint each and every citizen with the full facts on public housing. Where will these tenants come from? How will we provide schools? How much will it cost us over the years? What safeguards do we have against our having to absorb the overflow from Puerto Rico or Harlem? 35 The Council voted to reject the sites proposed for the white neighborhoods. It approved the project proposed for Runyon Heights. 36 Thus, in 1958, the City finally approved sufficient family housing sites to use the remainder of the 750 units that had been allocated to it for 1949. All 750 units were constructed in neighborhoods of high minority concentration; the City had rejected all sites proposed for family housing in any neighborhood not already having a high minority concentration.
37 For the next several years, MHA and the City concentrated on finding sites for senior citizen housing. The councilmen and the public equated senior citizen housing with housing for whites, and in fact, few of the residents of Yonkers's senior citizen housing projects have been minorities. 38 Such housing, so long as not denominated low-income, was not perceived as being for minorities and met with little or no community opposition. In 1961, for example, the City approved a senior citizen housing site for 300 units in a minority neighborhood of Southwest Yonkers; though the site abutted a predominantly white neighborhood, the only opposition came when expansion of the project was proposed and residents complained of area overcrowding. In 1963, however, when MHA proposed eight senior citizen sites, four in East Yonkers and four in white neighborhoods of Southwest Yonkers, a local news article, headlined 8 Possible Sites Picked for Low-Rent Housing, reported that these locations might also be considered to house families displaced by urban renewal. Public protests followed, including a letter from a community association representing more than 2,000 families expressing concern that [t]o penetrate the community with subsidized housing would tend to deteriorate realty values and adversely affect the character of th[e] community. Six of the proposed sites were withdrawn. 39 In 1964, the City sought federal funds to begin a new stage of urban renewal. When its application was rejected due to its poor record with respect to building subsidized housing for displaced residents, the City began once again to look for suitable sites for family housing. In 1965, MHA proposed eleven sites, including five in East Yonkers or white areas of Southwest Yonkers and four in minority areas of Southwest Yonkers. Protests and petitions were lodged against the five white-area sites on grounds of potential overcrowding and the effect on property values. A news report quoted one resident of East Yonkers as complaining that the City wanted to put in her neighborhood  'everything [her family had] tried to get away from'  by moving from urban areas to East Yonkers, and another resident as saying  'it wasn't that she didn't believe in racial or social or economic integration ... but [that] those people from Yonkers would feel so out of place here ... it would not be fair to them.'  624 F.Supp. at 1303. The Planning Director supported the East Yonkers sites; the Planning Board approved only the four sites that were in minority areas of Southwest Yonkers. 40 These four minority-area sites were then approved by a committee of the Council and one was approved by the Council itself. Before any of the sites could be formally submitted to HUD, however, HUD wrote the City suggesting scattered sites instead of site concentration in Southwest Yonkers because [r]elocation feasibility, even though quantitatively adequate, falls short of acceptability if racial containment will result from the proposed provision of relocation housing. In response, a subcommittee of CDA, the coordinating agency for all of Yonkers's urban renewal projects, compiled a list of 19 sites scattered throughout Yonkers; however, when this list was made public it caused alarm in the community. According to one news report, at a meeting of Yonkers housing agencies, fear was expressed by several speakers that the public is not yet ready to accept the federal government's plan for racial and economic integration on a citywide basis. None of the 19 sites was approved. 41 In 1967, the Council finally approved three sites from among those proposed by MHA in 1965. Despite the Council's awareness of the federal preference for scattered sites, the three sites approved were located in densely occupied, heavily minority sections of Southwest Yonkers. HUD refused to approve the sites.
42 During the period 1968 to 1974, the City turned to other federal programs for subsidized housing. CDA sought out private sponsors for a combination of low-and-moderate-income family projects; it focused its efforts solely on sites in Southwest Yonkers. 43 Proposed sites that were in the Southwest's predominantly white areas drew heated community opposition. Notwithstanding the view expressed by former councilman Edward O'Neill that race played no role in site selections--because  'nothing was ever expressed for the record to indicate that it did play a role,'  624 F.Supp. at 1311--several City officials testified that race was a factor. Some stated that their constituents tended to equate low-income housing with minorities. Others publicly identified the issue before them as being whether the residents of Yonkers were 'ready' for the economic and racial integration being urged upon the City by HUD and groups such as the NAACP and the Council of Churches. Id. at 1310. 44 CDA's director, Walter Webdale, testified to his view that the high level of emotionalism exhibited at public meetings indicated that residents were concerned about far more than mechanical matters such as the size of the street or the availability of public utilities, and that racial considerations d[id] come into play. He gave as an example the reaction to a site proposal for the northern end of Southwest Yonkers which, though just a few blocks from a predominantly minority area, was immediately surrounded by a white neighborhood. A Catholic Church group, led by their pastor, opposed use of this site for family housing and urged that it be used for a senior citizen project instead. The group told Webdale they opposed family housing because they feared an influx of blacks into the neighborhood. 45 Another proposed site called Rockledge, located in a predominantly white area of the Southwest, was initially supported by the ward councilman, Dominick Iannacone. Iannacone testified, however, that he received flack from his constituents. Some complained about the loss of the proposed site as a parking facility; others, who knew him better, stated that they didn't want the housing because they didn't want any blacks there. 624 F.Supp. at 1321. Thereafter, concerned that he would not be reelected if he supported Rockledge, Iannacone withdrew his support, citing his constituents' concern about loss of parking. Using the informal veto power enjoyed by any councilman in whose ward a project was proposed, he buried the matter in a Council committee of which he was chairman. At trial, he acknowledged that his publicly stated reasons for opposing the project were pretextual, and that his opposition in fact was in response to his constituents' racially influenced opposition. Id. at 1322. 46 In the end, CDA's efforts resulted in the construction of eight low-and-moderate-income family projects; all were in Southwest Yonkers and all were in or close to that area's predominantly minority neighborhoods. 47 Other City activities included consideration in 1969 of subsidized housing for the relocation of 1,000 families from Southwest to other parts of Yonkers; the City's goal was to ensure plant expansion space in Southwest Yonkers for one of the City's largest employers, which threatened to move out of Yonkers. A private consulting firm surveyed 98 possible sites, 76 of which were located in East or Northwest Yonkers. A City Council agenda noted that consideration of sites in nonminority neighborhoods had generated a great deal of controversy; neighborhood opposition was expressed by citizens' committees and the presentation of petitions by more than 3,000 residents. Proposals from local businesses for different sites, some located deep in Yonkers'[s] ghetto areas, prompted a passionate debate over racism. 48 Alfred Del Bello, mayor of Yonkers from 1970 to 1974, testified that he abandoned the 98-site survey and focused instead on four sites within a five-block radius of the predominantly minority downtown section of Southwest Yonkers. The State Urban Development Corporation agreed to sponsor these sites despite the known concern of the Planning Board that the locations chosen were inconsistent with the goal of commercial and industrial revitalization of Yonkers; construction was begun without consultation with the Planning Board. Del Bello testified that he had settled on the four sites in minority areas because he was dedicated to producing housing, and [he] had to find a political course that would allow us to get it constructed. He stated that race was definitely a consideration in many of the demonstrations and visible opposition that we had. 49 In 1971, HUD warned the City that Yonkers would lose millions of dollars in federal funding unless it provided a more balanced distribution of its subsidized family housing. City efforts to find sites acceptable to HUD included some dozen meetings in nonminority neighborhoods. One official described these meetings as chaotic and carrying a pervasive feeling of strong fear on the part of the residents; his perception was that racial motivations were very thick in the air. 50 Eventually, in 1972, the City approved construction of 334 units of subsidized housing on a site that was bordered on the north by a heavily minority area and on all other sides by neighborhoods that were predominantly white. This site was approved over the opposition of residents of the predominantly white neighborhoods, the only minority housing site approved over such opposition. Shortly thereafter, the common view being that the councilman in whose ward that site was located had little chance for reelection, the councilman resigned to take an appointed City position. In 1973, a new mayor, Angelo Martinelli, was elected, having promised during his campaign to impose a moratorium on all subsidized housing in Yonkers. The 334 units approved in 1972 were the last subsidized housing for families constructed in Yonkers.
51 In 1974, the Housing and Community Development Act (1974 Housing Act), Pub. L. No. 93-383, 88 Stat. 633 (codified, as amended, in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.), replaced previous federal urban renewal programs. Designed in part to expand housing opportunities for minorities, this statute allowed a community, inter alia, to receive certificates (called Section 8 Certificates) to be distributed to eligible families or individuals who could then choose an apartment in any participating building and have part of the rent subsidized by the federal government. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1437f. In 1975, the Yonkers Department of Development, an agency formed in 1971 during HUD's pressure for scattered sites for public housing, applied for 100 Section 8 Certificates, 50 for senior citizens and 50 for families. HUD reserved these certificates for the City, pending approval by the Council. 52 The Council, however, refused to approve use of Section 8 Certificates by families. Two City officials who attended a Council meeting at which the certificates were discussed testified that many councilmen had been concerned about the possibility that members of the minority community would, in fact, seek and probably find units on the east side of the city. 53 Accordingly, during the next several years, the City either applied for no Section 8 Certificates for families, or applied for and received family certificates but used few of them, or was denied further certificates because of its nonuse of prior certificates. In 1981, after MHA, at the urging of HUD, applied to HUD for Section 8 Certificates for both families and senior citizens, the Council passed a resolution forbidding MHA to apply for certificates for families. To the extent that the City allowed minority families to use any of the family certificates it had received, it referred those families only to buildings that were located in Southwest Yonkers; only white families used certificates in East or Northwest Yonkers. 54 The 1974 Housing Act also allowed a community to receive funds for housing construction. During the period 1974 to 1979, the City built four senior citizen housing projects using such funds. All four were in Southwest Yonkers. 55 In 1975, an additional senior citizen project was proposed by a private developer for East Yonkers. It was supported by the Planning Board as well suited for Housing for the Elderly vis-a-vis public transportation, shopping, recreation, etc. as well as its location in the eastern half of the city. The developer, however, had filed a fair housing statement with HUD, expressing his hope to attract elderly blacks and hispanics from Southwest Yonkers and achieve a 20% minority representation in the project. Local residents opposed the project on the ground that it contained the seeds of a ghetto, and the project was killed by the refusal of the City's Zoning Board to grant minor zoning variances for parking, and by the Council, which criticized the project on the ground--squarely contradicted by the planning experts--that it was unsuitable for senior citizen housing because, inter alia, there was an unsightly car lot nearby. The project was not built. 56 In June 1980, HUD advised the City that continued receipt of federal funding would be conditioned on the City's taking all actions within its control to construct 100 units of subsidized housing for families outside of areas of minority concentration. Although the City signed a contract with HUD containing such an undertaking, and several sites were thereafter proposed, no such housing was built. One such site was disapproved by the Council after receiving the [c]ustomary community opposition. Three others, out of a list of 14 submitted to HUD by CDA, were tentatively found acceptable by HUD, but their use for low-income housing was thwarted by Council zoning actions. For one site, the Council approved a zoning change so that it eventually became a shopping center instead. For another, the Council refused to approve a zoning change to a category consistent with development as subsidized housing. The third site tentatively approved by HUD was the site of School 4, which had been closed in 1976 and remained vacant, costing the City $40,000 to $50,000 per year in maintenance; this site was already in a zoning category that would permit a housing project. It was also in an area that was 98% white. In 1979, as soon as the School 4 property was mentioned as a possible site for low-income housing, the Council voted to remove it from the multifamily zoning category in order to 'give the community some peace of mind.'  624 F.Supp. at 1359. 57 In 1982, a developer expressed interest in the School 4 site for luxury condominiums priced at more than $100,000. The Council bypassed the Planning Board and took the unprecedented step of creating a citizens' committee, composed of five white residents of the area, to assess proposals for the use of the property. Four of the five committee members had no experience in planning or zoning, and the committee was not advised to consult the Planning Board. The committee recommended the sale because condominiums priced at $100,000 would attract the kind of people that we would like to live in the neighborhood. 58 Prior to Council action on the proposed sale, a councilman whose ward was near School 4 wrote his constituents urging them to attend the Council meeting, explaining that the NAACP opposed the sale on the ground that low-income housing should be built instead. At the meeting, a videotape of which is in the record, the predominantly white audience overflowed the room. The discussion was emotionally charged, with frequent references to the effect that subsidized housing would have on the character of the neighborhood. The final speaker from the audience, a white proponent of the sale, stated that the Bronx had been ruined when blacks moved there and that he supported the condominium proposal because he did not want the same thing to happen in Yonkers. The audience responded with an ovation. During the discussion that followed, when one councilmember pointed out that the current zoning of the site was inconsistent with the condominium proposal (the Council having, as noted above, removed the site from the multifamily zoning category as soon as it was suggested for low-income housing), another councilmember responded,  'we will change that zone when the concept fits the people, not before.'  624 F.Supp. at 1363. 59 The Council voted 11-2 to sell the site for luxury housing. A majority of those who voted for the sale stated that the will of the community should be honored. Consummation of the sale has been delayed pending resolution of this suit. 60