Williamsburg - A Judge Tells NYC Housing Agency To Rethink Removing Residents From Clemente Projects

Williamsburg - A Manhattan judge has ordered a city housing agency to reconsider evicting 31 tenants, most of them Jewish, from apartments in the Clemente Plaza a Brooklyn development, to make room for nonwhite families, primarily Hispanics.

State Supreme Court Justice Walter B. Tolub granted the request of several Jewish residents Clemente Plaza, in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section, who asked the court to reverse the city's finding that they had no right to the apartments.

The judge said, that HPD, after discovering its own errors, was now playing "catch-up ball" for legal and political reasons. "Such conduct cannot be condoned," the judge wrote in a harshly worded 13-page decision. "Violating one minority group's due process rights is not the way for a government agency to meet its commitment to another minority group."

A lawyer for HPD, said she was "disappointed" with the ruling.