Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.

VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON HEIGHTS ET AL. v. METROPOLITAN HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORP. ET AL.

Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

No. 75–616. Argued October 13, 1976 — Decided January 11, 1977.

517 F. 2d 409, reversed and remanded.

Powell, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Burger, C. J., and Stewart, Blackmun, and Rehnquist, JJ., joined. Marshall, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Brennan, J., joined, post, p. 271. White, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 272. Stevens, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Jack M. Siegel argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners. F. Willis Caruso argued the cause for respondents; with him on the briefs were Carol M. Petersen and Robert G. Schwemm.

The report occupies pages 252 through 274 of volume 429 of the United States Reports. The opinion of the Court begins at page 254 and ends at page 271; the opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall concurring in part and dissenting in part begins at page 271, and the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice White begins at page 272.

[429 U.S. 252] “Respondent Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. (MHDC), a nonprofit developer, contracted to purchase a tract within the boundaries of petitioner Village in order to build racially integrated low- and moderate-income housing. The contract was contingent upon securing rezoning as well as federal housing assistance. MHDC applied to the Village for the necessary rezoning from a single-family to a multiple-family (R-5) classification. At a series of Village Plan Commission public meetings, both supporters and opponents touched upon the fact that the project would probably be racially integrated. Opponents also stressed zoning factors that pointed toward denial of MHDC's application: The location had always been zoned single-family, and the Village's apartment policy called for limited use of R-5 zoning, primarily as a buffer between single-family development and commercial or manufacturing districts, none of which adjoined the project's proposed location. After the Village denied rezoning, MHDC and individual minority respondents filed this suit for injunctive and declaratory relief, alleging that the denial was racially discriminatory and violated, inter alia, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act. The District Court held that the Village's rezoning denial was motivated not by racial discrimination but by a desire to protect property values and maintain the Village's zoning plan. Though approving those conclusions, the Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the ‘ultimate effect’ of the rezoning denial was racially discriminatory . . . . Held:”

[429 U.S. 252] “1. MHDC and at least one individual respondent have standing to bring this action. Pp. 260-264.”

[429 U.S. 253] “(b) Whether MHDC has standing to assert the constitutional rights of its prospective minority tenants need not be decided, for at least one of the individual respondents, a Negro working in the Village and desirous of securing low-cost housing there but who now lives 20 miles away, has standing. Focusing on the specific MHDC project, he has adequately alleged an ‘actionable causal relationship’ between the Village's zoning practices and his asserted injury. Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 507. Pp. 263-264.”

[429 U.S. 253] “2. Proof of a racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and respondents failed to carry their burden of proving that such an intent or purpose was a motivating factor in the Village's rezoning decision. Pp. 264-271.”

[429 U.S. 253] “(a) Official action will not be held unconstitutional solely because it results in a racially disproportionate impact. ‘[Such] impact is not irrelevant, but it is not the sole touchstone of an invidious racial discrimination.’ Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 242. A racially discriminatory intent, as evidenced by such factors as disproportionate impact, the historical background of the challenged decision, the specific antecedent events, departures from normal procedures, and contemporary statements of the decisionmakers, must be shown. Pp. 264-268.”

[429 U.S. 253] “(b) The evidence does not warrant overturning the concurrent findings of both courts below that there was no proof warranting the conclusion that the Village's rezoning decision was racially motivated. Pp. 268-271.”

[429 U.S. 253] “3. The statutory question whether the rezoning decision violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was not decided by the Court of Appeals and should be considered on remand. P. 271.”

[429 U.S. 264] “Our decision last Term in Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229 (1976), made it clear that official action will not be held [429 U.S. 265] unconstitutional solely because it results in a racially disproportionate impact. ‘Disproportionate impact is not irrelevant, but it is not the sole touchstone of an invidious racial discrimination.’ Id., at 242. Proof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”

[429 U.S. 265] “Davis does not require a plaintiff to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes. Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the ‘dominant’ or ‘primary’ one. In fact, it is because legislators and administrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality. But racial discrimination is not just another competing consideration. When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose [429 U.S. 266] has been a motivating factor in the decision, this judicial deference is no longer justified.”

[429 U.S. 266] “Determining whether invidious discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor demands a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available. The impact of the official action — whether it ‘bears more heavily on one race than another,’ Washington v. Davis, supra, at 242 — may provide an important starting point. Sometimes a clear pattern, unexplainable on grounds other than race, emerges from the effect of the state action even when the governing legislation appears neutral on its face. . . . The evidentiary inquiry is then relatively easy. But such cases are rare. Absent a pattern as stark as that in Gomillion or Yick Wo, impact alone is not determinative, and the Court must look to other evidence.”

[429 U.S. 267] “The historical background of the decision is one evidentiary source, particularly if it reveals a series of official actions taken for invidious purposes. . . . The specific sequence of events leading up to the challenged decision also may shed some light on the decisionmaker's purposes. . . . Departures from the normal procedural sequence also might afford evidence that improper purposes are playing a role. Substantive departures too may be relevant, particularly if the factors usually considered important by the decisionmaker strongly favor a decision contrary to the one reached.”

[429 U.S. 268] “The legislative or administrative history may be highly relevant, especially where there are contemporary statements by members of the decisionmaking body, minutes of its meetings, or reports. In some extraordinary instances the members might be called to the stand at trial to testify concerning the purpose of the official action, although even then such testimony frequently will be barred by privilege.”

[429 U.S. 268] “The foregoing summary identifies, without purporting to be exhaustive, subjects of proper inquiry in determining whether racially discriminatory intent existed. With these in mind, we now address the case before us.”

[429 U.S. 269] “We also have reviewed the evidence. The impact of the Village's decision does arguably bear more heavily on racial minorities. . . . But there is little about the sequence of events leading up to the decision that would spark suspicion. The area around the Viatorian property has been zoned R-3 since 1959, the year when Arlington Heights first adopted a zoning map. Single-family homes surround the 80-acre site, and the Village is undeniably committed to single-family homes as its dominant residential land use. The rezoning request progressed according to the usual procedures.”

[429 U.S. 270] “The statements by the Plan Commission and Village Board members, as reflected in the official minutes, focused almost exclusively on the zoning aspects of the MHDC petition, and the zoning factors on which they relied are not novel criteria in the Village's rezoning decisions. . . . The Village originally adopted its buffer policy long before MHDC entered the picture and has applied the policy too consistently for us to infer discriminatory purpose from its application in this case.”

[429 U.S. 270] “In sum, the evidence does not warrant overturning the concurrent findings of both courts below. Respondents simply failed to carry their burden of proving that discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor in the Village's decision.”

[429 U.S. 271] “This conclusion ends the constitutional inquiry. The Court of Appeals' further finding that the Village's decision carried a discriminatory ‘ultimate effect’ is without independent constitutional significance.”

[429 U.S. 271] “Respondents' complaint also alleged that the refusal to rezone violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42 U. S. C. § 3601 et seq. They continue to urge here that a zoning decision made by a public body may, and that petitioners' action did, violate § 3604 or § 3617. The Court of Appeals, however, proceeding in a somewhat unorthodox fashion, did not decide the statutory question. We remand the case for further consideration of respondents' statutory claims.”

[429 U.S. 271] “Reversed and remanded.”

[429 U.S. 271] “Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.”

[429 U.S. 271] “I concur in Parts I-III of the Court's opinion. However, I believe the proper result would be to remand this entire case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229 (1976), and today's opinion.”

Editorial note. This record is a research edition, not a substitute for the official reporter. It reproduces the Reporter of Decisions apparatus and reproduces the Court's own text in verbatim passages arranged under the Court's own sequence of analysis, each bracketed with the official United States Reports page on which the passage appears. Passages set without quotation marks are Society prose; every quotation mark in this record encloses the Court's or the Reporter's words.

Editorial note. The Court-authored sections of this record are SELECTED EXCERPTS, not complete opinions. Three limitations are declared. First, the numbered footnotes of every opinion are not reproduced. Second, the statement of facts at pages 254 through 260 and the standing analysis of Parts I and II at pages 260 through 264 are summarised rather than quoted at length. Third, the opinion of Mr. Justice Marshall concurring in part and dissenting in part, at pages 271 and 272, appears here as its opening statement, and the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice White, at pages 272 through 274, is described in a Society summary rather than quoted; neither is reproduced in full.

Editorial note. Obvious typographic and scanning defects in the digitised bound volume — including the optical corruption of “MHDC,” “zoning,” and “In sum” in the transcription — have been silently corrected against the surrounding text; no substantive word has been altered, modernised, or paraphrased inside a quotation. For any purpose requiring the complete official text, consult the bound volume through the canonical source recorded with this authority.

Editorial note. Mr. Justice Marshall, joined by Mr. Justice Brennan, joined Parts I through III of the Court's opinion but would have remanded the entire case, including the constitutional question, to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration under Washington v. Davis rather than resolving the sufficiency of the evidence in this Court.

Editorial note. Mr. Justice White dissented, beginning at page 272, on the ground that the Court of Appeals had proceeded without the benefit of Washington v. Davis and that a remand for reconsideration of both the constitutional and the statutory claims — rather than an appellate re-weighing of the record here — was the appropriate course.

Editorial note. A non-profit developer contracted to purchase land within the Village of Arlington Heights, Illinois, to build federally subsidised townhouses for low- and moderate-income tenants, contingent on obtaining rezoning from single-family to multiple-family classification and on securing federal assistance. The village, whose population was overwhelmingly white, denied the rezoning, relying on a longstanding buffer policy under which multiple-family zoning was used to separate single-family districts from commercial and manufacturing uses. The developer and individual minority plaintiffs sued, alleging racial discrimination.

Editorial note. The District Court found no discriminatory purpose and entered judgment for the village. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the ultimate effect of the denial was racially discriminatory and that the village had not shown a compelling interest. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded, directing consideration of the claim under the Fair Housing Act, which the lower courts had not reached.

Editorial note. The issue was whether racially disproportionate impact, without proof of discriminatory purpose, establishes a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Court held that it does not: proof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required, disproportionate impact being merely evidence bearing upon it. The rule that follows is that a plaintiff challenging a facially neutral land-use decision under the Fourteenth Amendment must show that invidious purpose was a motivating factor, established from the totality of relevant facts.

Editorial note. Applying Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976), Justice Powell identified the evidentiary sources from which purpose may be inferred: a clear pattern of impact unexplainable on other grounds, the historical background of the decision, the sequence of events leading up to it, departures from normal procedural or substantive criteria, and the legislative or administrative history including contemporary statements. Measured against those factors, the record showed only that the village had adhered consistently to a buffer policy adopted long before the application, and the developer had known when it contracted that the parcel was zoned for single-family use. The Court expressly reserved the statutory question, since the Fair Housing Act may reach conduct the Constitution does not.

Editorial note. For the treatise the decision marks the division between constitutional and statutory attacks on exclusionary land-use regulation. It confines equal-protection review of zoning to intentional discrimination and thereby makes the Fair Housing Act, with its later-recognised disparate-impact liability, the operative instrument in the field. The five-factor framework it supplies remains the standard method of proving purpose in land-use litigation.

Editorial note. Followed and applied. On remand the Court of Appeals addressed the Fair Housing Act claim, and Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., 576 U.S. 519 (2015), later held that disparate-impact claims are cognisable under that Act, confirming the constitutional-statutory division this decision established.

Editorial note. Read with U.S. Const. amend. XIV (Equal Protection Clause), Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926), and the treatise chapters on exclusionary zoning and fair housing.