Nassau eyes old racial covenants on area properties

BY WILLIAM MURPHY AND SID CASSESE | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it February 5, 2009

It was less than 48 hours after an African-American took the oath of office as president of the United States when a poisonous part of the country's racial past surfaced at a government hearing in Mineola.

The Nassau County Planning Commission was almost finished with an agenda shortened by the economic slump. It was considering a yawn-inducing subdivision of a strip of town land in Port Washington so an abutting homeowner could purchase it for parking his car.

The only African-American member of the eight-member commission, Clara Gillens-Eromosele, said in a low voice: "I just wanted to put on the record that it was brought to our attention that there is a race restriction on the sale and use of the property in this instance."

That short comment has set off an inside-government debate in Nassau County on how to handle deed covenants with antiquated racial restrictions. By law, the covenants are unenforceable but are a reminder of Nassau's racial history.

Nonetheless, Gillens-Eromosele said the issue, "was something we really needed to address and not turn a blind eye to.

"I was a little surprised they still existed," she said this week. "I had thought that fair housing laws and the like had ended that. I think this is a statement by the county as a whole that we find them unacceptable."

When the Planning Commission meets again today, it intends to adopt a regulation that would require people who buy property with such restrictive covenants to stipulate they know that they are unenforceable, said commission chairman Jeffrey Greenfield.

Planning officials and local attorneys who practice land-use law said it was impossible to estimate how widespread such covenants were. The late 1940s Levittown development was known for its racial covenants, and they run through a number of communities in Nassau County.

Albert D'Agostino, a Mineola attorney and former counsel to the commission, said in an interview that some covenants went so far as to say that non-Caucasians could not live in a house, "except as a domestic servant."

"When I was a young lawyer and saw that language, I couldn't believe it. It was like something out of 'Gone With The Wind,'" D'Agostino said.

In the Port Washington case, there actually was no racial covenant on the deed to the home owned by Paul and Nancy Cuneo. It was included in old documents that are part of the permanent record, called a "chain of title," for every plot of land in the county. A 1920s version of the deed stipulated that the Cuneo property could not be sold or transferred "to any person or persons not of Caucasian race."

"I do think it is time to clean this up," vice chairman Michael Bellissimo, who was presiding, said after the commission voted Jan. 22 to allow the sale of the land.

Paul Cuneo, who was sitting in the audience, said later that he had no idea there was an old racial covenant attached to his property, and it is not on the current deed to the house. "I was totally unaware of the restrictions in the 1920s deed since it's not in my deed. I understand it's void and of no effect," he said.

Greenfield said commissioners aren't seeking to erase history, and have been working behind the scenes for two weeks to come up with language that puts property owners, lawyers and everyone else involved in land use issues on notice that the covenants are unenforceable.

"We want to make sure the past remains the past, and people are on notice that this is not acceptable public policy today," Greenfield said.

Land covenants with racial restrictions emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s in different parts of the United States; Garden City in Nassau and Forest Hills in Queens - both planned communities - were among the first to have them, according to Chris Niedt, assistant professor of sociology at Hofstra University.

In California, there are "restrictive covenant modification" procedures for homeowners who want to remove them from their property records.

The covenants were struck down as unenforceable by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948.

A Suffolk County spokesman, Dan Aug, said planning officials were trying "to determine the extent to which it is an issue in Suffolk."

Some attorneys who practice in Nassau County said that while the planning agency's racial sensitivity was good, the proposed changes were unnecessary.

"This is absolutely a waste of time," said Daniel Krimmer, a Mineola attorney specializing in title work. "I understand the historical significance of this. Clearly, we've just elected an African-American president," Krimmer said. "But I believe you move on. You look forward."