City of Hartford v. Towns of Glastonbury
| Decision Date | 15 August 1977 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 76,198 and 199,s. 76 |
| Citation | 561 F.2d 1032 |
| Parties | CITY OF HARTFORD et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TOWNS OF GLASTONBURY et al., Defendants-Appellants. Dockets 76-6049, 76-6050 and 76-6059. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Ralph G. Elliot, Hartford, Conn., for appellant Town of Glastonbury.
John J. Langenbach, West Hartford, Conn., for appellant Town of West Hartford.
James A. Wade, Hartford, Conn., for appellant Town of East Hartford.
Richard F. Bellman, New York City (Mary R. Hennessey and Barry S. Zitser, Hartford, Conn., of counsel), for appellees.
Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Atty., Dept. of Justice, and Robert P. vom Eigen, Atty., Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, D.C. , for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development as amicus curiae.
Before SMITH, OAKES and MESKILL, Circuit Judges.
The history of federal aid to the beleagured cities of the United States has seen a transition from urban renewal to the Model Cities Program, which expanded categorical grants for urban needs, to general revenue sharing in the 1970s, with accompanying block grants in general functional areas, such as manpower training, education and law enforcement. One of the more recent block grant programs is that for "community developments grants," authorized by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, § 103, 42 U.S.C. § 5303 (Supp. V 1975). This appeal, apparently the first of its kind to be decided under the 1974 Act, 1 requires us to decide whether the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) improperly approved certain applications for community development grants.
The City of Hartford, Connecticut, and two of its low-income residents have sued to enjoin seven suburban communities from receiving or expending grants approved by HUD under the Act, principally on the ground that the grant applications either contained no estimate, or an arbitrary, wholly inaccurate estimate, of the number of lower income persons "expected to reside" within the community, an apparent violation of 42 U.S.C. § 5304(a)(4)(A) (Supp. V 1975). A permanent injunction was entered by the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, M. Joseph Blumenfeld, Judge. City of Hartford v.
Hills, 408 F.Supp. 889 (D.Conn.1976). The towns of Glastonbury, West Hartford and East Hartford appeal; HUD does not appeal, nor do the other towns that were originally defendants and have been enjoined by the order below. We affirm.
Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 established a new system of federal assistance for community development activities, to be administered by HUD, and consolidated and superseded previous categorical programs, 2 each of which had specified purposes and particular statutory and administrative restrictions. Title I, in short, was intended to create a streamlined program dealing comprehensively with urban problems previously addressed in a piecemeal fashion. See S.Rep. No. 93-693, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 1-2, 48-49, reprinted in (1974) U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News pp. 4273, 4273-74, 4318-19; H.R.Rep. No. 93-1114, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3 (1974). The community development grants authorized by the Act may be used by localities in a variety of ways related to improvement of the physical and economic environment, such as for the acquisition of blighted land and historic sites, the construction or improvement of street lights and playgrounds, the enforcement of housing codes in deteriorating areas, and the development of community and management planning capabilities. 42 U.S.C. § 5305 (Supp. V 1975); see 24 C.F.R. § 570.200(a) (1976). The Title I funds may not be used, however, for the construction of housing or the payment of housing allowances, with minor exceptions not relevant here, id. § 570.201(f), (g). 3 These matters are covered elsewhere in the Act, particularly in Title II, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1437 et seq. (Supp. V 1975).
In terms of administrative review, Title I represents a compromise between the Administration's revenue sharing approach, under which communities would have automatically received funds on the basis of objective needs criteria, without any application or review process, and the approach favored by some members of Congress, which would have imposed substantial federal preconditions to grant awards and established elaborate application and review procedures. See generally Fishman, Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974: New Federal and Local Dynamics in Community Development, 7 Urban Law. 189, 191-200 (1975). The Act requires that communities apply to HUD, 42 U.S.C. § 5304(a) (Supp. V 1975), but limits HUD's review power in several ways. Cities and counties are declared "entitled" to the grant funds, id. § 5306(a), and an application is deemed approved 75 days after receipt by HUD unless the Secretary gives the applicant "specific reasons for disapproval," id. § 5304(f). The Secretary must approve an application, moreover, unless she determines, inter alia, that the applicant's description of community "needs and objectives is plainly inconsistent with (generally available) facts or data," id. § 5304(c). 4 Finally, with regard to requirements While community development grants may not be used for housing, Title I was designed in part to "(foster) the undertaking of housing and community development activities in a coordinated and mutually supportive manner." Id. § 5301(d)(4). Moreover, specific objectives of the Title include provision of "a decent home," especially for those with low and moderate incomes, id. § 5301(c)(3), and "the spatial deconcentration of housing opportunities for persons of lower income," id. § 5301(c)(6). 5 In accordance with these goals, the grant application submitted to HUD must include a "housing assistance plan" (HAP) that "accurately surveys the condition of the housing stock in the community and assesses the housing assistance needs of lower-income persons . . . residing in or expected to reside in the community . . .," id. § 5304(a)(4)(A), with "a realistic annual goal" specified for housing assistance, id. § 5304(a)(4)(B). 6 The housing needs detailed
that an applicant comply with certain civil rights laws and provide for citizen participation in the grant planning process, the Secretary may rely upon the "satisfactory assurances" of the applicant, rather than make an independent investigation. Id. § 5304(a)(5), (6) in the HAP can then be met with funds available under Title II of the Act. Thus (and this is crucial to the case) the HAP serves as the vehicle tying together the community development and housing assistance portions of the Act, in furtherance of the Act's overall goal of coordination of federal urban efforts, see id. § 5301(d). The critical importance of the HAP in the overall scheme of the 1974 Act is underscored in the Act itself 7 and in the legislative history; 8 it has been recognized by HUD 9 and was fully appreciated by the court below. 10
The three suburban towns here involved submitted applications for community development grants to HUD in the spring of 1975, after having first sent the applications "for review and comment" to the Hartford region's areawide planning agency, the Capital Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 5304(e) (Supp. V 1975). The CRCOG received adverse comments on the HAP and other aspects of the applications from the City of Hartford and a Hartford civil rights group, and it forwarded these comments to HUD. The HUD regional director in Boston, in a late April memorandum to the director of HUD's Hartford office, found the City's comments in particular to be "well documented and of a very serious nature." In addition, the area director of HUD's Equal Opportunity Division recommended disapproval of all three applications.
While the Hartford office was in the process of reviewing the applications in light of these criticisms, it received a May, 1975, memorandum from HUD's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development. That memorandum recognized that both grant applicants and HUD were having difficulty estimating the number of low-income persons "expected to reside in the community," an estimate central to the HAP, see note 6 supra, and suggested possible sources of data from which HUD might develop its own figures. It also gave applicants an option that eventually led to this case: instead of developing its own "expected to reside" figure or accepting HUD's, a locality could obtain approval of its application simply by "indicat(ing)" the steps it would take to "identify a more Appellants West Hartford and Glastonbury, along with several other towns, accepted the option offered by HUD and thus submitted zero figures for the "expected to reside" portion of the HAPs in the final applications approved by HUD. 11 The two towns were granted $999,000 and $910,000 respectively. East Hartford's application had been approved prior to receipt of HUD's May memorandum, and it contained an "expected to reside" figure of 131, derived exclusively from the waiting list of the town's public housing authority. East Hartford was granted $440,000.
appropriate needs figure by the time of its second year submission." The memorandum was quite explicit as to the meaning of this option: HUD would not require the adoption of any "expected to reside" figure on first year grant applications such as those in issue here.
Appellants challenge the standing of both the City of Hartford and the low-income plaintiffs to seek the...
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