Chronicle editorial: Is it time for Nance Shatzkin to step down as Croton's "Housing Czar?"

During public comments to the Board of Trustees, our leading housing advocate lost her cool before a heckling crowd and gave her critics a middle finger on departure.

Nance Shatzkin making public comments on the 1 Half Moon Bay Drive proposal

Last night, despite the objections of a crowd of at least 80 villagers, Croton’s Board of Trustees voted to begin the rezoning process that could lead to a 280 unit apartment complex rising at 1 Half Moon Bay Drive. For the first time in quite a while, the vote was not unanimous: Trustee Nora Nicholson, who shortly before the tally asked the developers to withdraw their application for a year, voted “nay.”

Everyone who showed up at the meeting spoke against the development, except for one person: Nance Shatzkin, president of the Croton Housing Network. Shatzkin, consistent with her decades of pro-housing advocacy, made some forceful arguments for building more housing in Croton. It takes courage to get up in front of a large crowd that disagrees with most everything one is saying, and Shatzkin is certainly no shrinking violet.

But as the crowd heckled her and yelled insults, Shatzkin lost her cool. In the course of less than five minutes, she accused opponents of the development of “NIMBYism,” told them they were “lying to themselves,” declared that this issue “brought out the worst in people,” and, as she was departing and the crowd continued to heckle, flipped her middle finger at the multitudes present.

We want to make our view clear that the heckling and insults from the audience were completely out of line. Shatzkin had the right to speak, and she should have been allowed to do so without interruption. We heard one lady yell out, “You’re a socialist!” which was a red-baiting insult to the millions of Americans who also consider themselves socialists, including some members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Nevertheless, Shatzkin knew that she was going before a hostile crowd, and she should have been prepared for the response. The fact that she was not able to do that speaks poorly of her current abilities to act as a housing advocate with a quasi-official role in village housing matters.

If Shatzkin were just a private citizen expressing her opinions, it might not matter. But she has been highly influential on housing policy and development in Croton. She, along with other members of the Croton Housing Network, serve on the village’s Housing Task Force, which has played a critical role in advising the Board of Trustees on its decisions about proposed housing projects.

Indeed, as president of both the Croton Housing Network and 41-51 Maple HDFC, which is the owner of record of Maple Commons (both the CHN and the HDFC are on local tax rolls as co-owners of that development), Shatzkin has been intimately involved in the flow of monies between the state, the county, the village, and the equity owner of the project, Regan Development Corporation. In a certain sense, on paper at least, Nance Shatzkin is the functional owner of Maple Commons.

We think it is quite possible that the village intends for her and CHN to play a similar role in the development of Parking Lot A, whose developer, WBP Development, LLC, will likewise be seeking public funds to build a 100% affordable condominium project at that site. (Shatzkin’s family business currently occupies offices in a building adjacent to Lot A, which is also being sold to WBP and will be torn down to make space for the development.)

Pro-housing advocates will surely agree that Shatzkin has been a mainstay of their movement in Croton over many, many years. But her passion for building more housing borders on zealotry, and in her public comments over the years—including in a recent interview with the Chronicle—she has made it clear that she will apparently support any housing project on offer, no matter how many legitimate objections might be made to it.

That attitude does not reflect the kind of careful and considered approach to housing issues that residents of a small village have the right to expect. Nor is it a good reflection on the local pro-housing movement, which is discredited by this kind of scorched earth, take-no-prisoners approach to debates over housing policy.

We urge housing advocates, and the village, to thank Nance Shatzkin for her long service and find new leadership capable of navigating the complex route to Croton’s future, whatever it may turn out to be.

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