Jones v. District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agcy., 73-1507

• Citation: 499 F.2d 502
• Decision Date: 26 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-1507,73-1638 and 73-1754.,73-1507
• Parties: Dick JONES et al., Appellants, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA REDEVELOPMENT LAND AGENCY et al. (three cases).
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia)

499 F.2d 502 (1974)

Dick JONES et al., Appellants, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA REDEVELOPMENT LAND AGENCY et al. (three cases).

Nos. 73-1507, 73-1638 and 73-1754.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Decided April 26, 1974.

Argued July 24, 1973.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Florence Wagman Roisman, Washington, D. C., for appellants.

Larry G. Gutterridge, Atty., Dept. of Justice, with whom Wallace H. Johnson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harold H. Titus, Jr., U. S. Atty., Nathan Dodell, Asst. U. S. Atty., and Carl Strass, Atty. Dept. of Justice, were on the brief for federal appellees. No brief was filed on behalf of federal appellees in No. 73-1638.

Bernard S. Cohen, Alexandria, Va., on brief for Washington Ecology Center, amicus curiae.

Before BAZELON, Chief Judge, and ROBINSON and WILKEY, Circuit Judges.

BAZELON, Chief Judge:

In November, 1972, plaintiffs filed suit in the District Court challenging the legality of certain actions of the defendants—the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA), the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), and the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)—in formulating and executing plans for the urban renewal of the 14th Street area of the District.¹ Plaintiffs, residents of the area, applied to the Court for preliminary injunctive relief, asking the Court, inter alia, (1) to enjoin the defendants from taking any action pursuant to the Neighborhood Development Programs for the second, third and fourth "action years" until the defendant agencies had complied with the procedural requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act;² (2) to enjoin defendant RLA from displacing area residents without providing the benefits mandated by the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act;³ and (3) to enjoin defendant RLA from failing to maintain residential properties it has acquired in the area in accordance with the provisions of the District of Columbia Housing Code.

In a series of orders the District Court denied the requested preliminary injunctive relief in all respects save one, granting an injunction only as to further actions under the second and third-year Neighborhood Development Programs. This injunction, however, the Court stayed, and ultimately dissolved after defendant HUD had filed with the Court a final environmental impact statement concerning the programs. In response to this series of orders plaintiffs filed these appeals.

We reverse the District Court's orders only insofar as they rested on a determination that the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act directs no mandate to defendant RLA. Although we have grave doubts concerning the District Court's handling of certain aspects of the NEPA issues in its initial order, we think these problems substantially resolved, and to some extent rendered moot, by the subsequent actions of the defendant agencies and the subsequent orders of the Court. We therefore find no cause to disturb the District Court's orders as to the remainder of the issues presented for our review.

I.

An understanding of the issues before us requires a somewhat extensive account of the facts underlying this litigation and the complex course the litigation has thus far taken. In setting out upon the redevelopment of the 14th Street area, the District of Columbia chose to proceed under the Neighborhood Development Programs provisions of the federal Housing Act,⁴ under which communities propose urban renewal activites to be undertaken in particular "action years," thus allowing HUD to fund, or decide not to fund, such activities in annual increments rather than years in advance of need. In the District, Neighborhood Development Programs (NDPs) for each action year must follow what the District Court termed "a tortuous route from conception to execution." After consultation with area residents and other interested parties, RLA formulates the action year program, the set of physical steps to be taken during the year in conformity with and in furtherance of an overall "workable program" for community development previously certified by HUD. RLA then submits its proposed action year program to NCPC for adoption or modification. If NCPC adopts the program, either as submitted or as modified, it is presented to the District's City Council, which holds public hearings on the program and decides whether to empower RLA to apply to HUD for federal funding. If the Council approves the program, NCPC certifies it to RLA for implementation the District applies to HUD for funding, and RLA proceeds to execute the provisions of the program. Thus, each action year program must, before execution, be passed upon by four distinct governmental bodies, three of which, RLA, NCPC and HUD, are federal agencies.

Renewal activities in the 14th Street area began in 1969 with the adoption of a general land use plan. By November, 1972, when this suit was instituted, NDPs 1, 2 and 3 had been fully approved in the manner described above; the fourth action year program, NDP 4, had been formulated by RLA, approved by NCPC, and forwarded to the City Council for its consideration. At the same time, pursuant to the action year programs already approved, RLA began to execute "Package I," preparing a prospectus to solicit bids and issuing notices to quit to residents of the site. It was apparently these actions of RLA that stimulated plaintiffs to bring this suit, plaintiffs objecting, in the main, to the ratio of low to moderate-income housing planned for Package I and in NDPs 2, 3 and 4 generally, and fearing that low-income residents of the area would be displaced despite the shortage of low-income housing elsewhere in the District.

On January 31, 1973, the District Court denied in all respects plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunctive relief. Thereafter, perhaps in part in response to this suit, NCPC issued on February 16 an environmental impact statement concerning NDP 4, thus making it available shortly before City Council hearings were held on the plan. On March 7, the District Court vacated its order of January 31 and, in its stead, issued the first of the several orders before us on appeal.⁵ In this order, the District Court held that, under Section 102(2) (C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),⁶ an environmental impact statement is required for each action year plan. Despite this holding, the Court refused to enjoin further action on NDP 4, finding that, because the plan had not yet been approved by the City Council nor funded by HUD, no irreparable harm to the environment was imminent. The Court did, however, enjoin further actions under NDPs 2 and 3, but stayed issuance of this injunction for sixty days "to afford the defendants the opportunity to complete and file formal environmental impact statements . . . ."⁷ Finally, the Court refused to direct compliance with the Relocation Assistance Act and the District Housing Code, holding that the provisions of neither applied directly to defendant RLA.

Plaintiffs appealed from this order and, on May 7, filed emergency motions asking this Court (1) to vacate the stay of the preliminary injunction with respect to NDPs 2 and 3; (2) to reverse summarily the District Court's denial of a preliminary injunction with respect to NDP 4, the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act and the Housing Code; or, in the alternative, (3) to enter an injunction as to these matters pending disposition of the appeal. We denied these motions on June 8, the parties at that time agreeing to submit the case to the panel on the merits.

In the meantime, the following events had transpired: the District City Council approved NDP 4 on March 29, and the plan was submitted to HUD for funding; HUD issued a final environmental impact statement concerning the plan on May 25 and, in June, approved its funding. The plaintiffs thereupon applied once more to the District Court for a preliminary injunction, contending that, because the approval process had been completed, harm was now imminent. By order dated June 28, the Court again refused an injunction, on the ground that, since an appeal from its March 8 order was pending in this Court, it lacked jurisdiction over the NDP 4 question. On July 2, the District Court granted defendants' motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction with respect to NDPs 2 and 3, primarily because shortly before, HUD had issued and filed with the Court a final environmental impact statement concerning the plans. Plaintiffs filed appeals from both of these orders, and we consolidated these appeals with the earlier appeal for argument and decision.

II

Because these cases are before us on appeals from the denial and dissolution of preliminary injunctions,⁸ matters that call, ordinarily, for the exercise of judicial discretion, the scope of our review is somewhat constricted. As we said recently in Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. U. S. Postal Service, "this court ordinarily will not disturb the order of the District Court except for abuse of discretion or clear error, . . . and we do not consider the merits of the case further than necessary to determine whether that discretion was abused. . ."⁹ With this general standard of review in mind, we turn first to plaintiffs' claims under the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act and the District Housing Code, neither of which, we think, requires any very extended discussion.

In declining to enjoin RLA from "allowing or effecting the displacement of any resident of the 14th Street NDP area for whom relocation housing and other benefits have not been provided as required by the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act," the District Court held that the Act's requirements are directly imposed only on federal agencies and, in particular, HUD; and that, by express provision of the Act, RLA is deemed a state rather than a federal agency.¹⁰ We think the District Court's...