Affordable Housing Firm Must Retrofit Building In Ossining

OSSINING, NY — An affordable housing developer has settled federal lawsuits by agreeing to make retrofits at 71 rental buildings in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Westchester County, which together contain more than 6,000 affordable units as well as several hundred market-rate apartments.

"The Fair Housing Act protects people with disabilities from being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to housing. This right applies equally to residents in affordable housing as to those living in luxury high-rises," Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in an announcement. "Today’s settlement is part of this Office’s long-standing effort to fulfill the FHA’s promise of accessibility for people with disabilities and a reminder to real estate developers that we will continue to enforce the FHA’s accessibility requirements vigorously."

Atlantic Development Group also agreed to provide $600,000 to compensate aggrieved persons and pay a $30,000 civil penalty and to establish procedures to ensure that its future residential development projects will comply with the accessibility requirements of the FHA.

Most of the buildings are in NYC; the two in Westchester are at 25 State Street in Ossining and 203 Gramatan Ave., Mount Vernon.

Prosecutors cited a recurring pattern of inaccessible conditions at Atlantic's rental buildings, including excessively high thresholds at building entrances and entrances to common use areas, ramps that lack handrails on both sides, common use bathrooms that lack grab bars and pipe insulation, excessively high thresholds at entrances to individual apartments and within the apartments, and bathrooms in individual apartments that lack sufficient clear floor space for people who use wheelchairs. The company admitted in the court-ordered settlement stipulation that features in the common use areas of their buildings, as well as in their buildings’ apartment interiors, did not meet the specifications set forth in the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines.

Some people may be entitled to monetary compensation from the fund created through the settlement. Aggrieved individuals may include those who:

• Were discouraged from living at one of Atlantic’s rental buildings because of the lack of accessible features;
• Have been hurt in any way by the lack of accessible features at one of Atlantic’s rental buildings;
• Paid to have an apartment at one of Atlantic’s rental buildings made more accessible to persons with disabilities; or
• Otherwise were discriminated against on the basis of disability at one of Atlantic’s rental buildings as a result of inaccessible design and construction.

Anyone who may be entitled to compensation can file a claim by using the Civil Rights Complaint Form available on the United States Attorney’s Office’s website, or by sending a written claim to:

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York

86 Chambers Street, 3rd Floor

New York, New York 10007

Attention: Chief, Civil Rights Unit