A Dismissal Highlights Dispute Over Housing Law
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WHEN David Bogdanoff, a 78-year-old Westchester builder, agreed to head the county’s new Housing Implementation Commission last year, he said his task was to “get the county out of the motel business and to provide the long-term housing necessary to return the homeless to their previous life.” He agreed with county officials that the commission had to find a way to build 5,000 units of permanent affordable housing immediately and use some of them for the county’s 4,500 or so homeless. Earlier this month, Mr. Bogdanoff decided he had been misled. In a broad indictment of county housing policies, he charged that “the county has abdicated control over our housing supply to local government because of misplaced fear of home rule.” With few exceptions, he said, relying on local action to build affordable housing “is futile.” Bogdanoff to Stay on the Board An “aggressive county,” Mr. Bogdanoff said, would test its authority to provide such housing. He said he had become convinced that a constitutional ban on direct county involvement is being misinterpreted. Before the commission’s 15 members could respond, County Executive Andrew P. O’Rourke took his own action — removing Mr. Bogdanoff as chairman and canceling the group’s September meeting. “I thought I had a chairman who was attacking the county — and he was,” Mr. O’Rourke said last week. “He was offering methods for building affordable housing that are illegal, so I thought we would have to part company.” More : query.nytimes.com |