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

Heading: housing segregation

Text: 9 The City of Yonkers, New York, is a section of Westchester County roughly 4 to 6 miles long by 3 to 3- 1/2 miles wide, just north of New York City's Bronx County. For purposes of this suit Yonkers is regarded as consisting of three basic geographic areas, referred to as East Yonkers, Northwest Yonkers, and Southwest Yonkers. Southwest Yonkers, which comprises less than one-quarter of the City's land mass, is the City's most densely populated and urban area. Characterized as containing the downtown or inner city area, it is the only section having any significant amount of industrialization. 10 At trial, there was little dispute that, at least as of 1980, when this suit was commenced, the residents of Yonkers were largely segregated by race, with the minorities concentrated in Southwest Yonkers. United States Census figures for 1980 showed that minorities, defined as blacks or hispanics, made up 18.8% of Yonkers's total population; minorities made up 40.4% of the population of Southwest Yonkers but only 5.8% of East and Northwest Yonkers. Southwest Yonkers, while housing only 37.5% of Yonkers's total population, housed 80.7% of Yonkers's minority population. 11 The minority population of Yonkers grew to 18.8% in 1980 from 2.9% in 1940. During this period, the concentration of minorities in Southwest Yonkers increased as follows: 12 Total Minority Minority Minority Percentage Percentage Percentage of Southwest Outside of Southwest 1940 ..... 2.9 3.5 2.0 1950 ..... 3.2 4.5 1.6 1960 ..... 4.5 6.7 2.8 1970 ..... 10.2 19.8 3.9 1980 ..... 18.8 40.4 5.8 13 Concentration has also been evident within the Southwest itself. In 1940, when minorities constituted only 2.9% of Yonkers's total population, two of the 10 census tracts in Southwest Yonkers had minority populations between 10% and 50%. In 1980, when minorities constituted 18.8% of Yonkers's total population, four of the 10 Southwest tracts had minority populations between 20 and 50%, and five had minority populations of more than 50%. A census-tract map showing the 1980 concentrations is attached to this opinion as Appendix A. 14 Northwest Yonkers and East Yonkers contained 14 census tracts in 1980, divided into 32 sub-tracts. Of the 32, only two had minority populations of 7% or more. One, located in Northwest Yonkers, had a minority population of 28.6%, most of whom lived in a neighborhood abutting a Southwest Yonkers tract that had a minority population of more than 50%. The other, a neighborhood in East Yonkers known as Runyon Heights, had a minority population of 79.8%. Runyon Heights was a middle-income community founded early in the century on a large tract of land owned by a state senator who regularly brought busloads of black residents from Harlem for picnics at which he auctioned off parcels of land to them. Runyon Heights is bounded to the north by a white neighborhood called Homefield. The original deeds for many Homefield properties contained restrictive covenants prohibiting the sale of such properties to minorities, and as Runyon Heights developed, the Homefield Neighborhood Association purchased and maintained a four-foot strip of land as a barrier between the streets of the two neighborhoods. To this day, Runyon Heights streets terminate in a dead-end just below this strip. 624 F.Supp. at 1410. 15 The current location of low-income subsidized housing in Yonkers corresponds largely to its concentrations of minority residents. As of 1982, the City had 6,800 units of subsidized housing; of these, 6,566 units, or 96.6%, were located in or adjacent to Southwest Yonkers. A map showing the City's subsidized housing sites is attached to this opinion as Appendix B. Only two subsidized housing projects were not in or adjacent to Southwest Yonkers. One was a family project located in Runyon Heights; the other, also in East Yonkers, was a project for senior citizens, the majority of whose residents had been expected to be, and were, white. Block-by-block maps for 1950-1980, showing more detail than the census tracts and sub-tracts, revealed that all sites approved by the City for low-income or low-and-middle-income family housing were in or very near neighborhoods that already had high percentages of minority residents. 16 Given the facts as to Yonkers's segregated housing patterns, most of the trial evidence on housing issues concerned whether the City's subsidized housing decisions bespoke a racially segregative intent. 17
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
61 After an extensive review of the evidence, Judge Sand ruled that, in view of the consistent and extreme segregative effect of the City's actions, which catered consistently to community positions that were in significant part racially motivated, plaintiffs had sustained their burden of proving that the segregated housing pattern in Yonkers had been caused or exacerbated by the City's pattern and practice of discrimination on the basis of race in its decisions on the location of subsidized housing. Id. at 1369-73. He found that this pattern had begun with the City's first selection of subsidized housing sites under the 1949 Housing Act and had continued through its 1982 attempt to sell the School 4 property for luxury housing. Id. at 1373. 62 The court rejected each of the City's arguments that persons and factors other than the City had been the cause of Yonkers's segregated housing pattern. It found that the cause was not HUD encouragement of subsidized housing construction in Southwest Yonkers, id. at 1328-30; rather, HUD had urged scattered construction sites, and the City had repeatedly risked the loss of federal funding by its refusal to select more widely distributed sites, e.g., id. at 1323, 1347, 1356. Nor was the cause a lack of private developer interest in areas outside Southwest Yonkers, id. at 1330-31; CDA had sought out developers only for Southwest Yonkers, id., and the City had thwarted the efforts of a developer who sought to build an East Yonkers project intended to attract 20% of its residents from minority groups, id. at 1350-51. Nor could the housing patterns be attributed to the desire of minority communities for concentration of subsidized housing in Southwest Yonkers; minority groups had begun at least as early as 1956 to express concern about the segregative effects of locating subsidized housing in heavily minority areas and had expressed a desire to hav[e] the opportunity to live elsewhere in Yonkers. Id. at 1332-33. Nor was there, as the City contended, a lack of suitable sites in East Yonkers, id. at 1333-37; some of the sites rejected by the Council had been considered by the planners to be ideal, e.g., id. at 1300. 63 The court also rejected the City's argument that its site-selection decisions were made pursuant to a race-neutral legitimate planning strategy for urban renewal, id. at 1337-42, for the City's site selections, far from revitalizing Southwest Yonkers, had brought revitalization efforts to a halt, id. at 1310, 1337. Rather, the court found that whenever a site was proposed for a predominantly white area, strong community opposition emerged. Id. at 1369. Though this opposition was not based wholly upon race, race was a significant factor, id. at 1371 (emphasis in original); the opposition was based, at least in significant part, upon fear of an influx of minorities into what were (and remain today) overwhelmingly white neighborhoods, id. at 1313. The court found that City officials consistently responded to that opposition. Id. at 1371. The inference that racial animus was a significant element in the community opposition to which City officials were responding was drawn from, inter alia, direct testimony to that effect, evidence of overtly racist comments, the racially divided quality of private housing in Yonkers, and a general pattern in which only sites proposed in the predominantly white Northwest or East Yonkers or the white areas of Southwest Yonkers engendered opposition. Id. at 1311-12. The court found that City officials came to view racially influenced opposition to subsidized housing in East Yonkers as a 'fact of life,'  id. at 1316, and made conscious decisions to concentrate on  'politically feasible'  sites, id. at 1313. In addition, the court found that numerous City officials not only responded to, but, in the words of the campaign literature of some, 'led the fight against subsidized housing in East Yonkers.'  Id. at 1373. 64 The court found further evidence of the City's intent to preserve segregation in housing in its conduct with regard to Section 8 Certificates. Its cut-off of applications for family certificates and its failure to use any already obtained family certificates for minority families outside of Southwest Yonkers were found inexplicable except by reference to the anticipated race of the certificate holders, id. at 1347, i.e., inexplicable except on the basis of fear that minorities might use the certificates to relocate to East Yonkers,id. at 1373. Similarly, with respect to the City's 1982 attempt to sell School 4 for luxury housing, the court found that the procedural innovations and the nature of the debate made it difficult to imagine a clearer case of an action taken for a discriminatory purpose. Id. at 1363; see also id. at 1518-21. 65 In sum, Judge Sand concluded that the extreme concentration of subsidized housing that exists in Southwest Yonkers today is the result of a pattern and practice of racial discrimination by City officials, pursued in response to constituent pressures to select or support only sites that would preserve existing patterns of racial segregation, and to reject or oppose sites that would threaten existing patterns of segregation. Id. at 1373. The court emphasized that its finding of the City's segregative intent rested not on a failure to act, but on a thirty-year practice of consistently rejecting the integrative alternative in favor of the segregative--a practice that had the unsurprising effect of perfectly preserving, and significantly exacerbating, existing patterns of racial segregation in Yonkers. Id. at 1368. 66 The court concluded that the conduct of the City and CDA violated the Equal Protection Clause and that their conduct since 1968 violated the Fair Housing Act as well.
67 Having found the City and CDA liable for statutory and constitutional violations, the court held a six-day hearing as to appropriate remedies. In an order published at 635 F.Supp. 1577 (1986) (Housing Order) and an unpublished Modification to Housing Remedy Order (Modification Order), dated July 8, 1986, the court permanently enjoined the City from, inter alia, intentionally promoting racial residential segregation in Yonkers and ordered that certain affirmative steps be taken toward a wider distribution of public housing. 68 The court noted that the City had already committed itself to providing sites for 200 units of public housing in order to receive its 1983 Community Development Block Grant (Development Grant) funds but had never fulfilled that commitment; the City also had entered into a Consent Decree with HUD that provided that HUD would reduce Development Grant funding if the City did not submit for preapproval sites for at least 140 of the 200 public housing units. The court ordered the City to submit an acceptable Housing Assistance Plan to HUD and execute a grant agreement with HUD, in order to receive the Development Grant funds for 200 units of subsidized housing, 635 F.Supp. at 1580; Modification Order at 2-4, and to submit to HUD for preapproval at least two sites for 140 [of the agreed 200] units of family public housing, 635 F.Supp. at 1580. 69 The Housing Order provided that if the City did not submit two such sites within 30 days of the court's order, the City would be deemed to have submitted the sites of three closed schools in East Yonkers, i.e., School 4, School 15, and the Walt Whitman School, or such other sites as might be proposed by plaintiffs and approved by the court. Schools 4 and 15, closed in 1976, had been returned to the City in 1982; Walt Whitman had been closed in 1983, and the court ordered the Board of Education to return that school to the City as well. The court also ordered the City to submit sites selected from a specific list for the remaining 60 public housing units. Id. at 1581. 70 In addition, the court ordered the City to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund for the encouragement of private development of low-and moderate-income housing, to be funded initially with at least 25% of the Development Grant funds allocated to the City by HUD. Id. at 1581-82; Modification Order at 1-2. It also ordered the City to establish a Fair Housing Office with prescribed responsibilities, to seek HUD approval for transfer of the administration of the Section 8 Certificate program to MHA, and to develop a plan for more subsidized family housing units in areas outside of Southwest Yonkers. 635 F.Supp. at 1577-82.