Green Street Association v. Daley

• Decision Date: 25 January 1967
• Docket Number: No. 15619.,15619.
• Parties: GREEN STREET ASSOCIATION, James Batts, Velma Batts, and all other plaintiffs named in the Complaint, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard J. DALEY, City of Chicago, Department of Urban Renewal of the City of Chicago, Lewis W. Hill, Robert C. Weaver, William L. Slayton and A. Dean Swartzel, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

373 F.2d 1 (1967)

GREEN STREET ASSOCIATION, James Batts, Velma Batts, and all other plaintiffs named in the Complaint, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard J. DALEY, City of Chicago, Department of Urban Renewal of the City of Chicago, Lewis W. Hill, Robert C. Weaver, William L. Slayton and A. Dean Swartzel, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 15619.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

January 25, 1967.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Richard F. Watt, Helen Hart Jones, Irving M. King, Cotton, Watt, Jones & King, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Merrill A. Freed, Joel Sprayregen, Ronald H. Silverman, Chicago, Ill., for amicus curiae.

Thomas A. Foran, Sp. Asst. Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., Alan S. Rosenthal, Dept. of Justice, Martin Jacobs, Atty., Washington, D. C., Raymond F. Simon, Corp. Counsel, Edward V. Hanrahan, U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., J. William Doolittle, Acting Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert V. Zener, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for appellees, Robert E. Wiss, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.

Before CASTLE, SWYGERT, and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judges.

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a dismissal¹ of an action filed by the Green Street Association, a not-for-profit corporation organized to protect and promote the interests of residents of a section of Chicago known as the Central Englewood Area, and approximately 125 individual Negroes who are owners or lessees of property in this section of the city. The plaintiffs sought a judicial review of an urban renewal project covering the area.

The Central Englewood Area is part of a much larger section of Chicago which in 1956 was designated as the Englewood Conservation Area by the Chicago Community Conservation Board pursuant to the urban renewal statutes of Illinois. This section consists of more than 3,000 acres of land and has a population of approximately 140,000 people. A conservation plan for this area was adopted by the Chicago City Council in 1962. Subsequently, a number of redevelopment projects covering portions of the area were planned and approved. Among these is the Central Englewood Project, consisting of an area of approximately seventy-five acres. Within the Project area there are twenty-two acres of residential property and twenty-seven acres on which approximately 150 structures of a nonresidential character are located. The initial surveying and planning work of the Project was started in 1961 by the Chicago Community Conservation Board. The work was partially financed by the federal government pursuant to the provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 1452. Thereafter the Chicago Department of Urban Renewal, successor to the Community Conservation Board, prepared a redevelopment plan for the area pursuant to the provisions of the Illinois Urban Renewal Consolidation Act of 1961, Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 67½, §§ 91.101-91.136 (1965), and in July 1964 the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance approving the plan, which calls for an expenditure of public funds in excess of thirteen million dollars. The Project was organized, planned, and presented pursuant to regulations prescribed by the Housing and Home Finance Agency under the federal urban renewal statutes, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1450-1465.

The Project will entail the construction and reconstruction of various streets, bypasses, and parking lots associated with and incident to the revitalization of a shopping center which services the entire Englewood area. This work will require the acquisition by eminent domain of approximately 300 buildings, consisting of about 600 dwelling units, eighty-five per cent of which are occupied by Negroes. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin the acquisitions and to have the Central Englewood Project declared invalid.

It is the theory of the complaint that the Central Englewood Project is not a good faith urban renewal, but rather a deliberate plan to create a no-Negro "buffer zone" between the shopping area and the surrounding residential community so that the shopping area will be more attractive to white customers and thereby rescue the commercial trade and business of the area from a declining condition. The plaintiffs also contend that this urban renewal plan fails to satisfy constitutional requirements of due process and freedom from discrimination to which the plaintiffs are entitled, since it was approved by the Chicago City Council without an adequate hearing and because it proposes a relocation of the residents in the cleared area in accordance with segregated housing patterns prevalent in Chicago. In this appeal, the plaintiffs challenge the dismissal of three of the five counts contained in their original complaint.

Count I

The plaintiffs in Count I invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts under 28 U.S.C. § 1343, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. They allege that approximately four-fifths of the housing to be cleared under the Central Englewood Project meets the city's definition of "standard" housing; that the parking facilities in the area are already excessive; that due to an increased concentration of Negro residents within the Englewood area the volume of business transacted in the shopping center has steadily declined; that a conspiracy exists to deprive the plaintiffs from owning or leasing property adjacent to the shopping center; and that the conspiracy started about 1953 among the "commercial interests" located in the center in order to create a no-Negro "buffer zone" between the shopping area and the surrounding residential community, thereby making the shopping area more attractive to white customers. The plaintiffs further allege that the City of Chicago, its mayor, the city's Department of Urban Renewal, and that department's executive officer "were induced" to join the conspiracy and that these defendants have "knowingly, wilfully and under color of law" proposed to use their official powers, including the power of eminent domain, to accomplish the object of the conspiracy. The urban renewal project for the Central Englewood Area is alleged to have been planned and approved in furtherance of the conspiracy. Finally, it is alleged that unless enjoined, the defendants by reason of their conspiratorial conduct will deprive the plaintiffs of rights to own, lease, hold, and enjoy property in violation of section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. § 1982.²

The district court in dismissing Count I relied heavily on this court's decision in Harrison-Halsted Community Group, Inc. v. Housing & Home Fin. Agency, 310 F.2d 99 (7th Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 373 U.S. 914, 83 S.Ct. 1297, 10 L.Ed.2d 414 (1963). The plaintiffs, in maintaining that this count states a claim for relief, place equal reliance on this court's decision in Progress Dev. Corp. v. Mitchell, 286 F.2d 222 (7th Cir. 1961).

In Harrison-Halsted the plaintiffs, certain businessmen, property owners, and residents of a blighted area on Chicago's near west side, sought to enjoin various federal, state, and local government officials from proceeding with an urban renewal program. Jurisdiction to obtain judicial review of the program was based on two grounds, federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and jurisdiction to review federal agency action under section 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 1009. No claim under any of the Civil Rights Acts was asserted. Although the plan of urban renewal was attacked generally, the central contention of the plaintiffs was that their interests and those of the community would be better served were the area redeveloped for residential and commercial use, as originally planned, rather than for use as a university site, as later determined. We held that the plaintiffs had presented no substantial federal question and had no standing to sue because the acts complained of did not constitute an invasion of their private legal rights as distinguished from their position as members of the community and because neither the Housing Act of 1949 nor the Administrative Procedure Act conferred such private rights upon them.

In Progress, a real estate development corporation purchased land in the village of Deerfield, Illinois and announced that it planned to sell a portion of the houses to be constructed on the land to Negroes. The village officials, upon learning of the plan, took steps to condemn the land, allegedly for use as a park. The plaintiffs, the developer and its parent corporation, filed an action in the federal district court to enjoin the condemnation by the village and its park district and to recover damages from the individual officials on the ground that the corporations' civil rights were being violated. Jurisdiction was based on the provisions of various Civil Rights Acts, including 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985. The district court dismissed the complaint. We reversed holding that the complaint stated a "federal cause of action." We ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to relief if it could be shown that the sole purpose of the village and its officials in instituting the condemnation proceeding was to conspire to deny the plaintiffs equal protection of the laws as alleged in the complaint.

Thus, at least insofar as jurisdictional allegations are concerned, Harrison-Halsted is inapplicable to Count I in the instant case, and at first blush it appears that the claim of civil rights violations asserted by the plaintiffs in this count is controlled by Progress. There are, however, significant differences both from the standpoint of the facts alleged and in terms of the practical and efficient administration of urban renewal programs generally which make the holding in Progress inapposite here and require that the dismissal of Count I be affirmed.

In Progress the municipal officials moved to take the plaintiff's property by exercising the power of eminent domain immediately after the plaintiffs' announcement that Negroes would have the opportunity to purchase homes...