Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.

No. 75-616. Argued October 13, 1976. Decided January 11, 1977. Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Judgment reversed and the case remanded (517 F.2d 409, reversed and remanded). Opinion of the Court by Justice Powell; Justice Marshall filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Brennan joined; Justice White filed a dissenting opinion; Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

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.