The town of Huntington, N.Y. has a zoning classification
permitting,
inter alia, private construction of
multifamily housing projects, but only in the town's urban renewal
area, where 52% of the residents are minorities. A private
developer, after acquiring an option to purchase a site in a 98%
white section of town zoned for single family residences, requested
the town board to amend the code to permit multifamily rental
construction by private developers townwide. The board rejected
this request. Appellees filed a complaint in the District Court
against appellants alleging, among other things, that appellants
had violated Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 by refusing
to amend the zoning code and by refusing to rezone the proposed
building site. Appellants conceded that the facial challenge to the
code should be evaluated under a disparate impact standard. The
District Court rejected appellees' claims. However, the Court of
Appeals reversed as to both claims, holding, with regard to the
town's failure to amend the zoning code, that appellees had
established a
prima facie case of discriminatory impact,
which appellants had failed to rebut. It ordered the town to strike
the zoning limitation from the code, and to rezone the project
site.
Held:
1. This Court expressly declines to review the judgment below
insofar as it relates to the refusal to rezone the project site,
because that portion of the case does not implicate this Court's
mandatory jurisdiction.
2. Since appellants conceded the applicability of the disparate
impact test, this Court does not decide whether that test is the
appropriate one. Assuming that test applies, the Court is satisfied
on this record that appellees have shown that the zoning
restriction has a disparate impact, and that the justification
proffered by appellants to rebut the
prima facie case is
inadequate.
844 F.2d 926, affirmed.
Page 488 U. S. 16
PER CURIAM.
The motion of New York Planning Federation for leave to file a
brief as
amicus curiae is granted.
The town of Huntington, N.Y. has about 200,000 residents, 95% of
whom are white and less than 4% black. Almost three-fourths of the
black population is clustered in six census tracts in the town's
Huntington Station and South Greenlawn areas. Of the town's
remaining 42 census tracts, 30 are at least 99% white.
As part of Huntington's urban renewal effort in the 1960's, the
town created a zoning classification (R-3M Garden Apartment
District) permitting construction of multifamily housing projects,
but, by § 198-20 of the Town Code, App. to Juris. Statement 94a,
restricted private construction of such housing to the town's
"urban renewal area" -- the section of the town in and around
Huntington Station, where 52% of the residents are minorities.
Although § 198-20 permits the Huntington Housing Authority (HHA) to
build multifamily housing townwide, the only existing HHA project
is within the urban renewal area.
Housing Help, Inc. (HHI), a private developer interested in
fostering residential integration, acquired an option to purchase a
site in Greenlawn/East Northport, a 98% white section of town zoned
for single family residences. On February 26, 1980, HHI requested
the town board to commit to amend § 198-20 of the Town Code to
permit multifamily rental construction by a private developer. On
January 6, 1981, the board formally rejected this request. On
February 23, 1981, HHI, the Huntington Branch of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and two
black, low-income residents of Huntington (appellees) filed a
complaint against the town and members of the town board
(appellants) in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District
of New York, alleging,
inter alia, that they had violated
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 by (1) refusing to amend
the zoning code to allow for
Page 488 U. S. 17
private construction of multifamily housing outside the urban
renewal zone and (2) refusing to rezone the proposed site to R-3M.
Appellees asserted that both of these claims should be adjudicated
under a disparate impact standard. Appellants agreed that the
facial challenge to the ordinance should be evaluated on that
basis, but maintained that the decision not to rezone the proposed
project site should be analyzed under a discriminatory intent
standard.
Following a bench trial, the District Court rejected appellees'
Title VIII claims.
668 F.
Supp. 762 (EDNY 1987). The Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit reversed as to both claims. 844 F.2d 926 (1988). The Court
of Appeals held that, in order to establish a
prima facie
case, a Title VIII plaintiff need only demonstrate that the action
or rule challenged has a discriminatory impact. As to the failure
to amend the zoning ordinance (which is all that concerns us here),
the court found discriminatory impact because a disproportionately
high percentage of households that use and that would be eligible
for subsidized rental units are minorities, and because the
ordinance restricts private construction of low-income housing to
the largely minority urban renewal area, which "significantly
perpetuated segregation in the Town."
Id. at 938. The
court declared that, in order to rebut this
prima facie
case, appellants had to put forth "bona fide and legitimate"
reasons for their action, and had to demonstrate that no "less
discriminatory alternative can serve those ends."
Id. at
939. The court found appellants' rationale for refusal to amend the
ordinance -- that the restriction of multifamily projects to the
urban renewal area would encourage developers to invest in a
deteriorated and needy section of town -- clearly inadequate. In
the court's view, that restriction was more likely to cause
developers to invest in towns other than Huntington than to invest
in Huntington's depressed urban renewal area, and tax incentives
would have been a more efficacious and less discriminatory means to
the desired end.
Page 488 U. S. 18
After concluding that appellants had violated Title VIII, the
Court of Appeals directed Huntington to strike from § 198-20 the
restriction of private multifamily housing projects to the urban
renewal area, and ordered the town to rezone the project site to
R-3M.
Huntington seeks review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1254(2) on the
basis that, in striking the zoning limitation from the Town Code,
the Court of Appeals invalidated "a State statute . . . as
repugnant to" Title VIII, a "la[w] of the United States." Viewing
the case as involving two separate claims, as presented by the
parties and analyzed by the courts below, we note jurisdiction, but
limit our review to that portion of the case implicating our
mandatory jurisdiction. Thus, we expressly decline to review the
judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it relates to the
refusal to rezone the project site.
Since appellants conceded the applicability of the disparate
impact test for evaluating the zoning ordinance under Title VIII,
we do not reach the question whether that test is the appropriate
one. Without endorsing the precise analysis of the Court of
Appeals, we are satisfied on this record that disparate impact was
shown, and that the sole justification proffered to rebut the
prima facie case was inadequate. The other points
presented to challenge the court's holding with regard to the
ordinance do not present substantial federal questions.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE WHITE, JUSTICE MARSHALL, and JUSTICE STEVENS would note
probable jurisdiction and set the case for oral argument.
