The act is aimed at making credit more widely available in low- and moderate-income areas.

The service test would evaluate the bank's branch network in low- and moderate-income areas, and the availability of credit services like counseling.

"This promotion will provide even more opportunities for people in low- and moderate-income areas to own their own homes," said Carol Parry, managing director of Chemical's Community Development Group.

With a rent roll of $135,000 a year, the price was 2.4 times the annual rent, about the going rate for foreclosed walk-ups in low- to moderate-income areas of the city.

Hempstead receives the largest segment of aid, because 37 percent of the blighted and low- and moderate-income areas in the county are in that town, according to Mr. Francis.

It provides countywide service in the form of over 800 stops per year in primarily low- and moderate-income areas of the county, with special focus on children and older adults.

Community opposition arises when subsidized housing in concentrated in low- and moderate-income areas, he said.

Credit unions are the only federally insured depository institutions not subject to the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages banks to lend in low- and moderate-income areas.

The incentive would be money: $1.7 billion, over five years, in federal tax credits for developers working in poor and moderate-income areas.

Starting in 1991, for example, Federal regulators, when asked to approve bank mergers, began to include a bank's lending history in low- and moderate-income areas as part of their review.