Laserfiche WebLink
Case Study - City of Davenport, Iowa <br />Recently the city of Davenport, Iowa, unveiled plans for a wholesale redevelopment of <br />a core city neighborhood. A number of single family and multifamily residential <br />properties, often older modest sized properties not always kept up, were slated for <br />demolition. This neighborhood was also home to a good share of the city's lower <br />income population, many of them households of color. The City's Human Rights <br />Department became alarmed, as it appeared that the City's redevelopment plans could <br />well have a disparate impact upon communities of color in Davenport protected by the <br />FHA. Since City plans were quite far along, the Human Rights Department had to <br />scramble to convince city officials that plans must be halted until the Fair Housing <br />implications could be considered. The City and the Human Rights Department had no <br />capability to do this analysis in-house so had to issue a Request for Proposals to <br />determine whether the city's plan would cause a disparate impact under the FHA, and <br />if so, whether less discriminatory alternatives were available which would accomplish <br />the city's goals. Ideally, this kind of analysis would have taken place much earlier in <br />the planning process. <br />27 <br />