Fellow Residents;
This Monday, January 17th, the village is closed for Martin Luther King Day. Martin Luther King’s message of equality and civil rights is one we celebrate in his memory.
Dr. King is known to have visited in Hastings with Kenneth Clark, a resident who played an important role in our nation’s civil rights history as well. In 1950, Dr. Clark completed research showing the harmful psychological impact of segregation on black children. The research was cited as an important basis for the pivotal Brown vs. Board of Education decision that struck down legal segregation. The Clarks hosted other prominent artists, writers and activists in their home, including James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Jacob Lawrence and Jackie Robinson. Mr. Clark passed on five years ago, but his legacy lives on and our community can be proud he called us home.
While much has changed in this country in the intervening forty years, we still work to perfect our union, including on a local level.
Hastings has worked for years to broaden the availability of affordable housing. Our Affordable Housing Committee has built two cottages on Warburton (at the base of Pinecrest), each with a rental apartment for a total of four units. Additionally, the Committee negotiated and oversaw the development of 14 units of affordable housing on Warburton Avenue at Division Street. Our Committee has been a model for other communities and we are proud of their diligent efforts.
Westchester County recently settled a civil suit that sets requirements for affordable housing for a number of communities including ours. The settlement specifies that a community cannot set rules that prefer local
workers or volunteer in selecting residents for affordable housing. Hastings currently has in place a law that specifies that 10% of any multi-unit development needs to be set aside for affordable housing. The Affordable Housing Committee took the opportunity to examine our local law and then suggest revisions that address the County’s new requirements and the Village’s goals. They have recommended that the set-aside continue to be composed of 10% affordable housing (though with no preferences) plus an additional 5% that would be either affordable housing or what is known as “workforce housing”, which can be specified for local volunteers and municipal workers. The choice would be driven by the developer’s economics.
This Tuesday, January 18th, we will have a public hearing at the start of our usual 7:30 Board of Trustee meetings to allow for public input and reaction to this change in the set-aside law. Click here to read the Proposed Local Law on Affordable Housing. If you can’t make the meeting but would like to comment, please write to the boardoftrustees@hastingsgov.org.
Beyond changes to the law, the Affordable Housing Committee has several actual affordable housing development sites under examination throughout the Village. Two sites, a home on Farragut Avenue and another on Mt. Hope (both with an accessory apartment) are in the approval process. This would add four units to our inventory.
There are other sites under consideration as well. We have the potential, over the next few years, of more than doubling our purpose-built affordable housing in Hastings. As work on these sites develop, we’ll keep residents informed. It’s an important and vital mission and one that the Committee has devoted hundreds of hours to and which the Board of Trustees endorses wholeheartedly. The issue of affordability comes in many guises – whether it is taxes, housing set-aside policies, purpose-built housing or accessory apartment rules.
Keeping Hastings economically diverse, promoting racial diversity, and remaining a leader in this area is of great importance to who we are.
Thank you for your attention and our regards on Martin Luther King Day.
Peter Swiderski
Mayor
P.S. If you enjoy the references to Hastings' history, please consider going straight to the same source I use and become a member of the Hastings Historical Society. A check for $25 a year to the Hastings Historical Society (at 407 Broadway, Draper Park, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706) will get you four newsletters a year that always include interesting background on the Village and support a great group that cherishes our joint community history.
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