Bloomberg, City Lose In Hasid Housing Discrimination Suit

Sweetheart Satmar housing deal, probably made by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg in return for Satmer bloc votes, ruled discriminatory and illegal by court.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Court Order Blocks Discriminatory Brooklyn Housing Development
Broadway Triangle Community Coalition v. Bloomberg (Challenging Discriminatory NYC Housing Development Plan in Brooklyn)

January 4, 2012 (NY-ACLU) – In a significant decision that moved toward resolving a longstanding challenge to New York City’s largest affordable housing plan and which may have implications for all future affordable housing developed in the city, a State Supreme Court judge today granted a preliminary injunction barring New York City from moving forward with developing affordable housing on the border of two Brooklyn neighborhoods, Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant, that would create dramatic racial disparities and increase existing segregation in surrounding neighborhoods.

The plaintiffs, a diverse coalition of community organizations who had long ago brought the potential discriminatory impacts of the proposal to the attention of New York City officials, sought the injunction, arguing that the Bloomberg administration’s plan to build affordable housing in the Broadway Triangle, a large parcel of city-owned land located in a highly segregated area of Brooklyn, violates the federal Fair Housing Act, state and city human rights laws, and the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

In granting the injunction on plaintiffs’ claims under the Fair Housing Act, Justice Emily Goodman ruled that plaintiffs had demonstrated the likelihood that they would succeed at trial on the merits of the case.

“Today’s ruling shows that the city’s housing plan for the Broadway Triangle would perpetuate segregation and discrimination in an area that has been heavily segregated for far too long,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman.

In 2006, the city began the process of developing affordable housing in the Brooklyn Triangle, which sits at the border of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Community organizations and residents objected at the outset of the exclusionary planning process, which did not include an analysis of how the plan to build affordable housing would affect the area’s severe racial segregation. The project as proposed would have given priority for the housing to people who live in a predominantly white section of Williamsburg (Community District 1) to the detriment of a neighboring community that is overwhelmingly black (Community District 3). While the Bedford-Stuyvesant area is 77 percent black, a demographer found that only 3 percent of residents in the new housing to be built in the Broadway Triangle would be black.

Plaintiffs argued that as the recipient of federal housing funds, the city was required under federal law to perform a racial analysis. Judge Goodman agreed.

“There can be no compliance with the Fair Housing Act where defendants never analyzed the impact of the community preference,” she wrote in her decision.

“This decision proves what a well organized community can achieve,” said Juan Ramos, chair of the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition. “After years of trying, the people were finally given justice and a role in the process that we were left out of. Our community is desperate for affordable housing, and we’re hopeful we’re now a step closer to inclusive and representative housing, not housing that perpetuates segregation.”

“This victory is not only for the plaintiffs, but for all the local community residents. It proves to them, that the old adage is true; you don't fight the fights you know you can win, you fight the ones worth fighting for,” added Rob Solano, executive director of Churches United For Fair Housing, Inc.

Judge Goodman also found that other aspects of the project, including a disproportionate amount of large apartments, would serve only one demographic group in the Broadway Triangle.

“The judge’s ruling should have a wide-ranging impact far beyond this case in that the court has emphasized that the city is always legally obligated to consider how these types of actions will impact segregation,” said Taylor Pendergrass, New York Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney and counsel on the case. “This decision puts the city is clearly on notice: When it proceeds to develop housing – whether in the Broadway Triangle or anywhere else – it must evaluate the potential impact on segregation and develop projects that include the entire community and will create more integrated neighborhoods.”

“This decision holds New York City to its obligation as a recipient of federal housing funds not to use those funds to further residential segregation,” explained co-counsel Diane L. Houk, of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLC. “We hope that this will prompt the City to re-evaluate how affordable housing is developed throughout the City and not just in Williamsburg.”

In developing its plan, the city worked exclusively to support an affordable housing proposal by the United Jewish Organizations (UJO) and its partner Ridgewood Brooklyn Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC) – both nonprofit groups. The UJO serves a particular portion of Brooklyn’s Hasidic community. The RBSCC is located outside of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant and does not provide services to either neighborhood.

In December 2009, the New York City Council overwhelmingly approved the proposal over the objections of local black and Latino residents. On Dec. 22, 2009, Judge Goodman granted plaintiff’s motion for a temporary restraining order preventing the city from moving ahead with the development plan. Last spring, the city rejected plaintiffs’ proposal to settle the case.

“We are very pleased with the Court’s decision,” said Shekar Krishnan, litigation associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and co-counsel on the case. “The law and facts are clear as to how the city's plans will perpetuate longstanding residential segregation in Williamsburg.”

Marty Needelman, chief counsel of Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A and also co-counsel said, “After fighting for this just cause for over two years, we are thrilled with the court's ruling. We hope the city will seize on the opportunity to move forward with a much more inclusive affordable housing plan through a much more inclusive process.”

Co-counsel on the case also includes NYCLU Legal Director Arthur Eisenberg.

The entire court decision as a PDF file:

Download Broadway Triangle v Bloomberg, NYC

Comments

[Yochanan Lavie]

I don't always agree with the ACLU, but I am with them on this one. Bloomberg is a Machiavellian politician who will do anything to get votes. Notice how Satmar, who despise secular Jews and gentiles, will ingratiate themselves with whomever is in power. They would not count someone like Bloomberg in a minyan, but will kowtow to him because he is mayor.

[Deremes]

Posted by: Yochanan Lavie | January 04, 2012 at 04:38 PM

I don't like king Bloomberg but you cant really say that he is worse then any other politician who will do anything and everything to get votes.

Perhaps you are not an observant Jew (maybe you are) and that's why you don't know but not counting someone like Bloomberg in a minyan is NOT a satmar thing.

[jancsipista]

Yochanan Lavie- right you are they the satmers gravitate to where the power is they are power hungary and not ashamed of it, when it suits them they would form a bond with satan as long as they get what they want.

[who knows]

Two groups that are on the government dole are fighting for a bigger piece of a pie. What is new?

[Waiting4Moshiach]

So what do they want, that we should live with behemas? The dark ones do not want to live with the Yidden and the Yidden do not want to live with them. We are to different. Can you imagine what your shabbos would be like if you had such people on the other side of the wall, the things the kinder would hear and smells of pork in the air, drugs, violence, it is all a fact and everyone knows it. So why should we be the ones to have to live with them?

This is all part of the secular attack on our way of life, it begins with buses and then comes the street, our homes, then they get rid of shechita because an animal has more rights than a Jew. Then they say "change the bris" before they ban it. I know the city tells us to keep a go bag but what we need is a "goy" bag just in case. And Yidden, remember, a minimum of three passports for ever one! Right now I say Singapor or some other yellow country, plus europe and maybe India.

[AztecQueen2000]

Waiting--You only get one passport unless you are planning to commit identity theft. I think you mean "visa." And most Asian countries won't want someone who refers to their sovereign territory as a "yellow country."
And, quite frankly, I've never had a problem living near, or attending school with, people of color.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Deremes: I am conservadox, but I daven in an MO shul. I am just going by what was told by an old acquaintance of mine. He is an elderly man, an MO holdover from Williamsburg, who has lived there since back in the day when it wasn't all chassidic. He said the Satmar won't count him in a minyan because he has no beard. He said he sometimes walked across the Williamsburg Bridge to daven on the Lower East Side. He seemed an ehrliche Yid to me.

[CM]

Aztec, don't bother. "Waiting" is a troll who does the best he can to make people believe he believes the garbage he posts just to upset others. Replying to him gives him the attention that justifies his existence.

[MarkfromShortHills]

Waiting4Moshiach is a provocateur. Whether he does or does not believe his crazed scrawlings is irrelevant; his object is to get a rise out of people. There will always be new readers whom he can rile up, but we will see less of him if people would just ignore whatever nonsense he writes.

[seymour]

Posted by: Yochanan Lavie | January 04, 2012 at 05:55 PM

I find that odd since I never had that problem and they know who i am

Ok now much different but then still religious and wore modern cloths and was always counted for a minyan wherever i went

including Satmer on 54 street

[danny]

I love this little clip from the article:

New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman.

Choke on that religious fanatics and women haters.

[ruthie]

i cannot believe that an erlicher yid would not be counted in a minyan because he doesn't wear/have a beard.
omg
i honestly don't know...laugh or cry

[FrumButSentient]

to: "Who knows"

Shkoiach and congrats. You exactly "stole" my intended response.

Maybe . . . . . .gladitorial games where the two sides could fight it out for the apartments. Sort of a, ya know, "kill two birds" kinda thing! :-0

[jancsipista]

i thing we should get those predators from the movie the predators with their ugly looking heads to come and duke it out with the satmerers,theese predators hunt humans for the game of it 2 predators duking it out:)))

[mark meyer appel]

This deal was brokered by the corrupt vito lopez who led the fight against better and stronger laws against child abusers

[Tom Stedham]

LOL at that area being "77 percent white"... I guess Jews are considered "white" until a white person attacks one of them. Then it's a hate crime because they are "Jewish" again...

If this was a "Hispanic" area, would it also be considered "white"?

[Not Simple]

Enough subsidies! Sell the property to the highest bidder and let the market determine who lives there and what the price of the homes eventually should be. This is America and we have a market economy.

If the poor can't afford the newly built homes then so be it. There are plenty of affordable properties across the country. Face it. New York City is expensive and people will pay a hefty premium to live here!

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

"and smells of pork in the air,"

Mmm.... bacon

I want to make a bacon soap with bacon bits as an exfoliating agent for men.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

"Maybe . . . . . .gladitorial games where the two sides could fight it out for the apartments."

Like Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York.

[centrist]

I agree with the decision here. It should be noted that liberal Manhattan is a very very white city. They need to bring the diversity squads to Manhattan.

[Neturey karto forever]

Marty Needelman is a tzaddik

[David]

and smells of pork in the air

There is no Halachic prohibition of smelling treif substances.

[Lisa v]

Deremed,

Why someone like Bloomberg should not be counted for a minyan.?

[yechi ben levitas]

DERMES: Definition of an observant jew as follows. the rabbi when asked by the roman general about, the upright jew, the rabbi is said to have replied.Do unto them that which you would expect them to do for you.All the rest is commentary. the more OBSERVANT jews around your great city, who waddle around in their 18th centuary outfits ,from,bloomingdales? seem to produce the most jewish perverts , thugs money launderers etc. never mind king bloomberg, the crown is on the head of aaron rubashkin and has family of misguided pigmyies. this was all taking place while the rabbi stood on one foot ,remember??? so now go ahead and define your meaning of observant. ps not driving on shabos is neither here nor there,.especially if one is not the driver.

[yechi ben levitas]

i hereby grant special dispensation for travelling on shabat, since in the time before world wars one and two every neighbourhood had a shool in walking distance as in the hardei areas in jerusalem, gush etzion and the like, today. so we are all observant if we fullfill a righteous way of life. YOUr billionaire mayor may very well be righteous and be welconed into any jewish house of worship.

[flat earth]

Is there a single New York state, county or local politician who doesn't suck up to these parasites?

[Gevezener Chusid]

He said the Satmar won't count him in a minyan because he has no beard. He said he sometimes walked across the Williamsburg Bridge to daven on the Lower East Side. He seemed an ehrliche Yid to me.

Posted by: Yochanan Lavie | January 04, 2012 at 05:55 PM

This man is not telling the whole story. Satmar or any other Hassidic congregation (at least in the US ... God knows what they are capable of in Israel) would exclude someone solely because he didn't have a beard.

[Shmilda]

One of the lawyers' first name is Sheker. I love it.

[Lamed Vovnik]

To Waiting4Moshiach: Moshiach does NOT care for racism or hatred of non-Jews. These racist rants of yours are responsible for preventing Moshiach from coming. If you want Moshiach to come you will need to show derech eretz for the rest of humanity.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Gevezener: What motive would an elderly man have for not telling the whole story? He didn't say they wouldn't let him daven with them, just that they wouldn't count him in the quorum. Maybe he misinterpreted the situation?

[Deremes]

Yochanan Lavie-

I was talking about a guy like Bloomberg and you tell a story of someone without a beard. Hu?
A person who is a gentile can not be counted into a minyan and a person like Bloomberg who is a Mechalel Shabbos Be'farhesia(in public)does everything that a Jews shouldn't do according to the Torah also cant be counted into a minyan.

The story you tell about the elderly man,most probably is not true. Not you or that person is lying.Its just a dream or fantasy.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Deremes: I'm telling it the way I heard it. Maybe they just assumed that he couldn't be frum without a beard. But he is.

[Observer]

What happens to a Jew when they smell pork?