New York settles lawsuit claiming housing regulations worsened segregation
New York City has agreed to change the way it selects tenants for affordable housing to settle a long-running civil rights lawsuit that alleged the city's housing system reinforced segregation.
The lawsuit, filed by three Black women in 2015, sought to end the city's “community preference” policy, which typically gives priority to half of a new development's affordable apartments to people already in the same community district live as the project.
The plaintiffs argued that the policy illegally disadvantages people who live outside the neighborhood when applying for apartments. For example, black New Yorkers who lived outside the community district around the West Village, which is more than 71 percent white, would be disadvantaged if they applied for an apartment there. That kind of disadvantage violated the Fair Housing Act and New York City Human Rights Actthe plaintiffs said.
Under the terms of the settlement, the city will reduce the percentage of affordable apartments reserved for people living in the same community district as a new development to 20 percent from 50 percent by 2029. From May 2029, this share will drop to 15 percent. .
Both supporters and opponents of the policy tried to characterize the agreement in positive terms on Monday.
Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement that the agreement “allows the city to maintain the community preference policy,” which he said was critical to adding affordable housing “in partnership with communities across the city.”
Craig Gurian, the executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the agreement showed that “city officials have turned away from the discredited policy of racial discrimination and said out loud, in words, that all of our neighborhoods should belong to all of us.”
The community preference policy has been around since 1988, when Mayor Ed Koch instituted it as a way to give low-income residents a head start in applying for new apartments subsidized by the city. As housing costs rose and gentrification accelerated in cities across the country, similar approaches were adopted San FranciscoMinneapolis Portland And Austin.
The policy has helped city officials convince neighborhoods and city council members to accept new developments. Politicians have used it to address the fear of displacement that often accompanies major neighborhood transformations, such as the redevelopment of Greenpoint and East New York.
For years, the lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan produced voluminous court filings, including internal emails and depositions from top city officials, showing in extraordinary detail how the city tried to address its housing crisis.
The case could now reshape the playing field in the fiercely competitive housing lotteries. In 2022, for example, there were about 430 applications for each home, according to the city's housing department.