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The feds are using this county as their prototype in their social re-engineering project.

http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/all-press-releases/4546-federal-monitor-s-report-cards-expand-scope-of-housing-settlement

http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/all-press-releases/4504-astorino-fighting-for-7-4-million-in-promised-funds-now-blocked-by-hud

"The feds are using this county as their prototype in their social re-engineering project."

Thanks for the post - that is VERY enlightening and very alarming. I wish I could say I was surprised. It is clearly a bunch of bullying, and it is clearly an effort to criminalize traditional zoning practices, which are one of the primary tools for neighborhood stability and integrity. They want to seed middle-class neighborhoods with low-income, high-density housing, which will: 1. Increase crime; 2. lower property values; 3. degrade the quality of life; 4. lower the quality of schools; and 5. tilt red districts blue.

Great links! The settlement in Westchester County arose from a False Claims Act lawsuit filed by some fair housing advocacy group (from NYC irrc) a few years ago.

For years the County had accepted HUD Community Development Block Grant funds. As part of receiving these funds each year, the County had to certify to HUD that it would affirmatively further fair housing. The lawsuit argued the county was actually not affirmatively furthering fair housing because the housing the County built using HUD grant funds was in areas of minority racial concentration. In other words, the County had made a false claim to receive the funds, and should be required to repay the tens of millions of dollars in grant funds (along with a generous reward for the agency bringing for the claim - a little incentive package included within the False Claims Act).

The huge settlement in this case put some other local jurisdictions in a bit of a panic over concerns they were vulnerable to similar False Claims Act lawsuits.

HUD promised its grantees further guidance on meeting their obligation to affirmatively further fair housing as a condition of receiving grant funds. The result being this new rule proposed by the Secretary that is gaining a lot of attention. The flow of Community Development Block Grant and other so-called entitlement grant funds into metro areas all across the US gives HUD a lot of leverage to pressure grantees to modify their zoning ordinances and other policies/regulations that have a disparate impact upon the ability of “Democrats” to move into white neighborhoods.