Trustees Consider Affordable Housing and Revaluation

Scarsdale Village Trustees were back at work right after the New Year to consider fair and affordable housing in Scarsdale and a village-wide revaluation.

On Wednesday January 5, the Trustees Law and Land Use Committees met to discuss how Scarsdale might comply with the  County’s affordable housing settlement that requires Westchester County to provide 750 units of affordable housing by 2016. Though the Federal Monitor has not approved Westchester’s entire plan, the clock is running, and if the County fails to meet deadlines they could pay large penalties. The cost of this penalty could be passed along to municipalities in the County.

Therefore, the Mayor believes it would behoove Scarsdale to take steps to comply to demonstrate the Village’s willingness to do our share. The Federal Monitor James Johnson did approve a Model Code Provision that meets the requirements of the stipulation. The Model Code is provided as a template for municipalities to adopt, and the monitor is hopeful that Villages in Westchester will incorporate the provisions into their own code.

Village Planner Elizabeth Marrinan reviewed the Model Code to determine if portions of it could be adopted by Scarsdale.

Here are the provisions under consideration:

• A requirement that at least 10% of the total number of units in residential developments of 10+ units be Affordable Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing Units (AFFH)
• Income limits for owner occupied sale units of 80% of area median income (AMI) and income limits for rental units of 30-60% of AMI for AFFH units
• That developers market the AFFH units in accordance with an approved Affordable Housing Affirmative Marketing Plan
• That the affordable units remain affordable by deed restriction or covenant for 50 years.

Following a discussion, the Trustees asked the Village staff to do the following:

• Suggest revisions to the Model Ordinance to fit the facts and circumstances of Scarsdale
  Obtain information from other villages about they are doing and not doing vis-vis the model ordinance.

The Village staff agreed to have this information to the Trustees within 45 days.

Revaluation: Following the discussion of Affordable Housing, the Trustees Law Committee considered revaluation. On the table was a resolution to ask the Village staff to draft an RFP to retain an expert to conduct the revaluation in Scarsdale.

After some discussion, the Trustees determined that this did not require a resolution and that the document drafted by the Village staff provided more detail than needed about the revaluation.

They decided to simplify the request and agreed that the Village staff should draft an RFP that will allow the Village to determine what experts are available and what the cost might be.

The complication is that Westchester County is considering a Countywide revaluation and is already in the process of taking aerial photographs that could be used by Scarsdale as one piece of the revaluation. However, the County has adopted a four-year timeline for their revaluation, and if Scarsdale waits for the County to complete their data collection and photography it could be up to six years before Scarsdale would complete their revaluation. Though the County would defray some of the cost of the revaluation, six years may be too long to wait. The number of tax grievances in Scarsdale continues to climb and a recent report by the Scarsdale Forum calls for an immediate revaluation.

Therefore, the Trustees asked the Village Manager to draft an RFP to determine the cost of conducting a revaluation for Scarsdale alone, in conjunction with one more additional municipalities or as part of a countywide revaluation. In addition, the RFP should request pricing for the ”Chevrolet” approach where fewer factors are considered and fewer home entries required, versus a more in-depth revaluation with a longer list of home characteristics to be considered and a higher percentage of home entries.

Robert Berg attended the meeting on behalf of the Scarsdale Forum and asked the Trustees to do more than draft the RFP, as the Forum is eager to move forward with the entire revaluation. As no other objections were heard, the Trustees agreed to request the RFP and the meeting was adjourned.