Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. v. Village of Arlington Heights

• Decision Date: 10 June 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-1326,74-1326
• Citation: 517 F.2d 409
• Parties: METROPOLITAN HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, an Illinois not-for-profit Corporation, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, a Municipal Corporation, et al.,Defendants-Appellees, Northwest Opportunity Center, Inc., and Eluteria D. Maldonado, InterveningPlaintiffs-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 409

517 F.2d 409

METROPOLITAN HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, an Illinois not-for-profit Corporation, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. The VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, a Municipal Corporation et al.,Defendants-Appellees Northwest Opportunity Center, Inc., and Eluteria D Maldonado, InterveningPlaintiffs-Appellants.

No. 74-1326.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 13, 1975.

Decided June 10, 1975.

William J. McNally, Carol M. Petersen, F. Willis Caruso, Robert G. Schwemm, Gerald J. Muller, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Jack M. Siegel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before FAIRCHILD, Chief Judge, and SWYGERT and SPRECHER, Circuit Judges.

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.

The question in this case is whether the Village of Arlington Heights' refusal to rezone a piece of property in order to permit the construction of a housing development for low and moderate income persons violates plaintiffs' constitutional rights.

Plaintiff Metropolitan Housing Development Corporation is an Illinois non- profit corporation organized in 1968 for the purpose of developing low and moderate income housing in the Chicago metropolitan area. It was selected by the Clerics of St. Viator, a Catholic religious order, to develop the land in question for low and moderate income housing. The Clerics have title to eighty acres of land in Arlington Heights, a suburb northwest of Chicago, on part of which is situated their novitiate and high school. The land they wish to make available is a vacant fifteen acres in the southeast corner of the acreage. This property is bounded on the east by single family homes on the south by Euclid Avenue which has single family homes, on the side opposite St. Viator's property, and on the west and north by undeveloped St. Viator property. The Clerics entered into a ninety-nine year lease and sale agreement with Metropolitan Housing which provided that the land was to be developed for subsidized housing. The price was to be $300,000.

Metropolitan Housing proposed to use the land for a 190 unit townhouse development to be called "Lincoln Green." Under the plan more than sixty percent of the property was to be maintained as open space. The financing was to be provided pursuant to section 236 of the National Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, 12 U.S.C. § 1715z-1. These units would have been the only subsidized housing in Arlington Heights despite a great demand for such housing in that area.

The fifteen acres on which Lincoln Green was to be situated, like the remainder of the St. Viator property, has always been zoned R-3, single family; in fact, all of the land surrounding the property is zoned R-3. In order to build this development, however, the fifteen acres would have to be rezoned to R-5, multifamily. Since 1959 the Village has had its "Comprehensive Plan" that provides that an area should be zoned R-5 only if it represents a "buffer" zone or transition between single family zoning and commercial, industrial, or other high intensity uses.

Metropolitan Housing applied for a zoning change. As the district court found after trial, Metropolitan Housing "took the necessary administrative steps to obtain rezoning and made various changes in its proposal in an attempt to satisfy various objections which were raised by the Village's Plan Commission." Metropolitan Housing presented studies showing that Lincoln Green would not cause major traffic problems and would make a net contribution to the Village in terms of taxes. Still, after holding public hearings, the Plan Commission recommended against the rezoning and on September 28, 1971 the Board of Trustees of the Village voted six to one to deny the request. The apparent reason for the rejection was that the property was in the middle of a completely single family area and would not act as a buffer zone as required by the Comprehensive Plan.

This suit was then instituted by Metropolitan Housing and the individual plaintiffs who seek to represent moderate income minority members who work or desire to work in Arlington Heights but cannot find decent housing there that they can afford. (Northwest Opportunity Center, another not-for-profit corporation, and Eluteria Maldonado have been allowed to intervene as plaintiffs.) The complaint alleges that the refusal to rezone perpetuated segregation and denied Metropolitan Housing the right to use its property in a reasonable manner in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1981 and 1982), the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (42 U.S.C. § 1983), and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq.). The relief requested is a declaratory judgment invalidating the Arlington Heights zoning ordinance as applied to the subject property and an injunction restraining defendants, among whom are the individual Trustees of the Village, from preventing or interfering with the development of the housing proposed by Metropolitan Housing.

After a trial on the merits the district court denied the plaintiffs any relief. It found that there were good faith reasons for the refusal to rezone and that the decision did not have a racially discriminatory effect. It held that plaintiffs were attempting to extend the Fourteenth Amendment beyond its outer limits. We disagree and reverse.

I

The first contention raised by plaintiffs is that they have been denied equal protection of the law in that the Village's zoning policy has been administered in a discriminatory manner. See Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886). They claim that had Lincoln Green been a commercial development the zoning change would have been granted. We agree that this contention, if proved, would state a claim entitling plaintiffs to the relief sought. The district court, however, found that this claim was not proved, and we cannot say that the finding was clearly erroneous.

The evidence on this point relates to the results of other requests for zoning changes to R-5. Plaintiffs contend that sixty zoning changes to R-5 were granted to commercial developers and these changes show that the policy of using R-5 property only as a buffer zone had not been followed. Thus it is argued that the buffer zone explanation is really a "sham" excuse offered only because the Village did not wish to have a housing project for low and moderate income families.

The evidence, however, relating to both grants and denials of requested zoning changes does not require the conclusion that had Lincoln Green been a proposed commercial development the variance would have been granted despite the fact that the development would not serve as a buffer zone. Plaintiffs' own expert agreed that the Village had conformed to its Comprehensive Plan for approximately two-thirds of these sixty zoning changes. His report listed fifteen relevant instances of failure to adhere to the stated policy. Defendants' witness disputed this conclusion in regard to many of these and offered explanations for the others. Our review indicates that in only four relevant instances were there clear violations of the buffer zone policy and in another two instances a questionable violation. This must be balanced against the defendants' evidence concerning the zoning change refusals. That evidence shows that prior to the Lincoln Green rejection there were two proposed changes rejected at least in part on the basis of the buffer zone policy and another four rejections which might have been on this basis though this was not stated. There were also two proposals that were withdrawn after the Plan Commission had recommended their rejection at least partly on the basis of the apartment policy. A third withdrawal after a rejection recommendation might have been for the same reason. Subsequent to the ruling on Metropolitan Housing's proposal, the Plan Commission recommended the rejection of two other requests on the ground of the buffer zone policy (one of these was then withdrawn and the other had not been passed upon by the Village Board at the time of trial).

The inference that can be drawn from this evidence is that Arlington Heights has been applying its buffer zone policy in considering requests for zoning changes though not with absolute consistency. The evidence does not necessitate a finding that Arlington Heights administered this policy in a discriminatory manner. While more detailed factual findings concerning these zoning changes would have been helpful, an examination of the record and exhibits indicates that the district court's finding that defendants were concerned with "the integrity of the Village's zoning plan" is not clearly erroneous.

II

Plaintiffs also argue that even if the buffer zone policy has been properly applied the refusal to rezone the land has a racially discriminatory effect and perpetuates Arlington Heights' segregated character. Regardless of the Village Board's motivation, if this alleged discriminatory effect exists, the decision violates the Equal Protection Clause unless the Village can justify it by showing a compelling interest. See Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 725, 81 S.Ct. 856, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1963).

The real question is whether there is a racially discriminatory effect for equal protection purposes. It is true that a greater percentage of blacks than whites are affected by the Village's decision since a greater percentage of blacks than of whites are in the low and middle income categories that are eligible for this proposed section 236 housing development. (Blacks comprise forty percent of the eligible prospective tenants.) But this disparity does not necessarily mean that the zoning change refusal had the type of racially discriminatory effect that requires the invocation of the compelling state interest tests. As indicated, the "class" that is affected by the Village's action is composed of individuals with low and...