Yarborough v. City of Warren

• Decision Date: 11 October 1974
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 35843.
• Citation: 383 F. Supp. 676
• Parties: Gordon YARBOROUGH et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF WARREN et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

383 F. Supp. 676

Gordon YARBOROUGH et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF WARREN et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 35843.

United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

October 11, 1974.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

William H. Goodman, Robert L. Reed, Michigan Legal Services Assistance Program, Thomas C. Carey, and George G. Matish, Legal Aid Society of Detroit, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs.

Thomas Landy, Asst. City Atty., Warren, Mich., Robert J. Lord, Fair Haven, Mich., Fred M. Mester, Asst. U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., Eugene R. Bolanowski, Kenneth R. McAlpine, Warren, Mich., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PHILIP PRATT, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, residents of the City of Warren, Michigan, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (hereinafter the NAACP) and others have brought two civil rights actions arising out of the elimination of an urban renewal program in Warren. First, plaintiffs allege that the municipal defendants (the City, the Mayor and three City Council members) violated their rights under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1982 and 1983 and 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq. (the Fair Housing Act of 1968). Second, plaintiffs allege that the federal defendants (officials of the Department of Housing and Urban Development) violated their rights as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. §§ 3608 (c) and 3608(d)(5). Jurisdiction of this Court is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1343, 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 42 U.S.C. § 3612.

The Court, having received testimony and other evidence through twelve days of trial, from December 11, 1973 to January 8, 1974, having heard oral argument, and having duly considered the briefs of the parties and the evidence hereby makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Findings of Fact

At a general election in the City of Warren, Michigan on November 3, 1970 voters approved the following proposal by a vote of 26,471 to 19,906:

"Shall the Council of the City of Warren repeal each and every section of Title 10, Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of Ordinance 80 as amended?"

As a result of the passage of this proposal and after the entry of a mandamus judgment on March 23, 1971 in Macomb County Circuit Court, the Warren City Council enacted an appropriate repealing ordinance on April 6, 1971. By this action the Council repealed general provisions (enacted pursuant to the Michigan Blighted Area Rehabilitation Act, M.C.L.A. § 125.71 et seq.) necessary to permit funding relations between Warren and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for Warren's Neighborhood Development Program (an urban renewal program authorized by 42 U.S. C. § 1469 et seq.) and thereby terminated that program in Warren.

The defendant City of Warren, Michigan is a Michigan Municipal Corporation organized pursuant to the Michigan Home Rule Cities Act, M.C.L.A. § 117.1 et seq. The City Council is the legislative body of Warren. The individual defendants, L. Klimecki Dannis, Stephen Jury, Jr., and Richard Sabaugh were elected members of the City Council in April, 1969. Defendant Ted Bates was Mayor of the City of Warren (the City's chief executive officer) at the time of the referendum.

Warren borders the north side of the City of Detroit, Michigan. In 1970 Warren had a population of 179,260 of whom 132 were black. Warren has a large industrial base, and approximately 6,500 black Americans are employed in the City. Housing in Warren includes owner-occupied residences, condominiums, apartments, mobile homes, and low-income housing.

At various times from 1963 to 1967 acts of refusals to sell or lease homes or equivocation were shown to have occurred with respect to four black families: Mr. and Mrs. Earl E. Bass, Mr. Melvin White, Mr. and Mrs. Irene Lilly and Col. and Mrs. Washington. The Lilly family eventually succeeded in buying a home in Warren. Other testimony of Dr. Lillian Bauder and Mr. J. F. Charbonneau purporting to show that they were unsuccessful in finding homes for blacks in Warren is not conclusive, in the Court's opinion, inasmuch as supposed acts of equivocation and the availability of homes were not clear.

Since November 3, 1970, four fair housing complaints have been filed with the Michigan Civil Rights Commission (the organ charged with enforcing the Michigan Fair Housing Act of 1968, M.C.L.A. § 564.101 et seq.) regarding homes in Warren. Three of these complaints were dismissed, and one was adjusted.

Between 1961 and 1971 various contacts were made between the City of Warren and the federal government, Department of Housing and Urban Development, regarding urban renewal planning for Warren, beginning with a 1961 application by Warren for funds to prepare a Master Plan for an urban renewal program.

On August 21, 1962 the City Council of Warren authorized the forwarding of materials to the federal government seeking approval of a "workable program" for community improvements. 42 U.S.C. § 1451(c). A "workable program" is a community's comprehensive view of its housing and redevelopment needs and its plans for meeting these needs. It is a broad planning document which seeks to produce a coherent and balanced approach to these needs by coordinating the use of federal and local resources. The workable program consists of four areas: code adoption and enforcement; planning and programming; housing and relocation; citizen involvement. Implementation of 42 U.S.C. § 1451(c) is achieved through an HUD Handbook, "Workable Program for Community Improvement," M.P.D.7100.1a. A workable program for a community must be recertified by the federal government each year before federal funds may be provided for urban renewal.

In 1969, pursuant to a Community Renewal Program, a further planning stage in the implementation of an urban renewal program, a Community Attitude Survey was conducted in Warren. Data for the survey was collected through approximately 700 interviews.

On November 12, 1968 the Warren City Council authorized the filing of an application for a Neighborhood Development Program (NDP). An NDP, as authorized by 42 U.S.C. § 1469, is an urban renewal project carried out on the basis of annual increments in one or more project areas. The NDP is a long range effort to achieve better communities through planned rehabilitation or redevelopment of deteriorated and deteriorating areas, both residential and non-residential, and the removal of factors that create slums and blight. It is locally conceived, planned and carried out and involves cooperation among local governments, state governments, private enterprise, citizens, and the federal government. A salient difference between NDP and other urban renewal plans is that funding is based upon a twelve month period, utilizing urban renewal funds to meet current activities. Each such period is termed an "action year," and the NDP must be recertified or approved for each action year.

The Warren NDP contemplated the following:

(a) The provision of local grants-in-aid.

(b) A feasible method for the relocation of persons displaced from urban renewal areas.

(c) Other local obligations and responsibilities in connection with the undertaking and carrying out of the program.

The City was to meet one-third ( 1/3 ) of the total cost and the federal government two-thirds ( 2/3 ). However, Warren was to be credited for non-cash community improvements either already in existence or contemplated for the NDP area, and no additional cash disbursements were contemplated from the City's general fund budget. Thus Warren had accumulated non-cash credits of $7,000,000, sufficient to entitle the City to $14,000,000 of federal aid, or enough for projected NDP needs for ten years.

The Warren NDP as it operated from April 1, 1969 to termination (the first and only action year) consisted of the following:

1.) The designation of three NDP districts, or areas: the McKinley Park Area, the Nine Mile and Van Dyke Area and the Ten Mile and Schoenherr Area.

2.) Rehabilitation of existing structures through grants and loans to individuals.

3.) Clearance of properties which were structurally substandard and economically unfeasible to rehabilitate. Sixteen families and one business were thus displaced.

4.) Relocation of the aforesaid families and businesses displaced.

5.) Public improvements such as streets, sidewalks, parks and school property.

6.) Citizen participation through Neighborhood District Councils in each of the NDP areas.

7.) Further planning involving the City Planning and Urban Renewal Commission, the District Councils and overall control by the City Council.

In addition to these elements, the NDP was intended to include 100 to 200 units of relocation housing (which were not built) in the McKinley Park and Nine Mile-Van Dyke Areas. Although 100 units of new low-income housing were discussed at one time, that proposal was rejected. Thus, the Warren NDP involved no new, open, low-income or public housing.

On February 12, 1969 HUD and Warren officials met in Warren to discuss the City's Workable Program and "equal opportunities" concerns in Warren.

On April 1, 1969 HUD and the City of Warren executed an NDP Master Agreement and a Funding Agreement for the first action year of Warren's NDP.

On March 9, 1960 Francis Fisher, Regional Administrator of HUD in a letter to Mayor Ted Bates concerning funding for the second NDP action year and recertification of the City's Workable Program indicated that further steps by the City to provide equal opportunity in housing would be necessary before such refunding and recertification could be achieved. He suggested thirteen steps the City might take in this regard.

After further meetings with HUD and Warren officials it was agreed that two actions would suffice for such refunding: passage of an open housing ordinance and provision for a community relations board. On June...