HUD Targets Suburban Zoning As Racist, Official Warns : PAUL SPERRY….see note please
http://news.investors.com/121313-682910-hud-targets-surburan-zoning-as-racially-exclusionary.htm
Stanley Kurtz wrote all about this last year in
Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities by Stanley Kurtz (Aug 2, 2012)
“The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to expand its view of discriminatory housing practices to include local zoning rules to control building in suburban neighborhoods, a New York county official battling the federal agency warns.
Rob Astorino, the Republican executive of Westchester County, says his Manhattan suburb illustrates what the rest of the country can expect under a sweeping anti-discrimination regulation HUD is expected to finalize by Christmas.
“The battle for zoning in Westchester County (will be) the battle everywhere,” Astorino said Tuesday during an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) briefing on Capitol Hill.
HUD has cut off $17 million in funding to Westchester for refusing to sue local municipalities to modify zoning ordinances to accommodate more subsidized housing. HUD claims the ordinances, which like almost every locality in America, set limits on building density, are racially “exclusionary.”
“HUD has said that even quarter-acre (lot) single-family zoning, in their view, may very well be discriminatory and perpetuate ‘segregation,'” Astorino said. “And (it) must be looked at, and even maybe attacked.”
Disparities Vs. Discrimination
Over the past few years, Westchester, one of the toniest communities in America, has built 400 affordable-housing units in mostly white neighborhoods. It’s under federal orders to build 350 more at a total cost of $51 million.
But HUD’s not satisfied. “This is about changing every block, every neighborhood to the viewpoint of federal bureaucrats at HUD,” Astorino said.
Under the Obama administration, housing officials no longer limit their view of housing discrimination to overt acts such as landlords and Realtors steering minorities away from predominantly white areas. They now consider any race-neutral policy that has the “effect” of creating “disparate access” for minorities to good jobs, schools and other suburban “assets” to be a racist “barrier.”
To close racial “disparities,” HUD in its new rule proposes tying federal funding for counties and cities to suburban integration of urban blacks and Latinos. read the rest at the site
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