Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/02/2016

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Zoning Bulletin May 10, 2016 I Volume 10 I Issue 9 selling 8,000 square foot lots," the Developers asked the City to rezone the property from R-1-8 to R-1-6—which would allow for 6,000 square foot lots. The City staff and in-house planning experts recommended approval of the zoning request. The City Planning and Zoning Commission voted to ap- prove the rezoning request. The rezoning request was then forwarded to the City Council with recommendations of the Planning Staff and the Planning and Zoning Commission that the request be granted. While the City Council considered the rezoning request, it received complaints from landowners near the property. Those opponents pointed to the Developers' other developments, in which 77% of homebuyers were Hispanic. The opponents complained that people living in those neighbor- hoods tended to: "have large households, use single-family homes as multifamily dwellings, allow unattended children to roam the streets, own numerous vehicles which they parked in the streets and in their yards, lack pride of ownership, and fail to maintain their residences." The opponents cited fear of: "a higher rate of unattended juveniles roaming the streets, as well as domestic violence, theft, burglaries, and criminal damage/vandalism to properties." Ultimately, the City Council denied the Developers' rezoning request. That denial was the only denial out of 76 applications for rezoning that it had considered over the preceding three years. Following the denial, the Developers sued the City. They alleged both disparate -treatment in violation of the Fair Housing Act ("FHA") and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as disparate -impact in violation of the FHA. In particular, the Developers maintained that the City's refusal to rezone stemmed from intentional discrimination or animus against Hispanics and created a disparate impact because the denial disproportionately deprived Hispanic residents of housing opportunities and perpetuated segregation. The district court first dismissed the Developers' Equal Protection and FHA disparate -treatment claims, citing a failure to state a claim. It then granted summary judgment in favor of the City on the Developers' disparate -impact claim, rejecting the theories on which the Developers relied. The district court found that other similarly -priced and similarly - modelled housing available elsewhere in the City necessarily precluded a finding that there was a disparate impact. The Developers appealed. DECISION: Judgment of district court reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. Reversing the district court's judgment, the United States Court of Ap- peals, Ninth Circuit, held that the Developers presented plausible claims for relief for disparate treatment under the FHA and the Equal Protection Clause. The court also rejected the district court's view on the disparate - impact claim. In so holding, the court explained that the FHA, among other things, ©2016 Thomson Reuters 5