Planning for People Coalition v. County of DuPage

70 F.R.D. 38, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16832
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedFebruary 4, 1976
DocketNo. 71 C 587
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 70 F.R.D. 38 (Planning for People Coalition v. County of DuPage) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Planning for People Coalition v. County of DuPage, 70 F.R.D. 38, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16832 (N.D. Ill. 1976).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

WILL, District Judge.

This is an action brought by ten named individual plaintiffs, for themselves and as representatives of low and moderate income persons for whom there is allegedly inadequate housing in Du-Page County, and by two community organizations, to enjoin alleged exclusionary housing practices of the defendants, DuPage County, Illinois, its supervisors, and several large land developers who have built or are planning to build in the county. Discovery has been completed in the case, and it is on the final pretrial calendar. The defendants have now moved for summary judgment, contending that the recent Supreme Court decision in Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975), requires us to dismiss the case because the individual and organizational plaintiffs lack standing. We grant defendants’ motion as to Planning for People Coalition, but deny the motion as to the other plaintiffs.

I. THE FACTS

In March, 1971, the plaintiffs commenced this action, alleging that low and moderate income persons are unable to obtain adequate housing in DuPage County because of the defendants’ exclusionary housing practices. Relying on state and federal eligibility requirements for public or subsidized housing, they define “low income person” as a member of a family of five whose income is no greater than $5,800 a year and “moderate income person” as a member of a family of five whose income is no greater than $11,680. All other persons they designate as “relatively wealthy.” The ten named plaintiffs are either low or moderate income persons, most of whom are members of minority groups and include both residents and nonresidents of DuPage County.1 They allege they have sought adequate housing for their families in DuPage County, but have been unable to obtain housing which they can afford. The organizational plaintiffs, Planning for People and H.O.P.E., Inc., promote low and moderate income housing in DuPage County. Both organizations receive requests from such families for housing and attempt to assist them. [41]*41In addition, H.O.P.E., Inc., is assisting a number of its Directors who are low or moderate income persons, in obtaining adequate housing in DuPage County.

The defendants in this action are Du-Page County, its supervisors, and various parties who have interests in proposed residential developments in DuPage County. (“Green Trails” and “Realcoa” defendants.)2 DuPage County is a political subdivision of the State of Illinois whose population is 492,000, of whom approximately 1,650 are black. In 1969 and 1970, the Green Trails and Realcoa defendants petitioned the County for special use permits to develop projects involving a total of approximately 2,494.5 acres, over 15,636 housing units, and an estimated population of over 34,-380 persons. The plaintiffs allege the County has approved or will approve permits for these projects, no units of which will be economically viable for either middle or low income families.

The plaintiffs contend that DuPage County officials intentionally attempt to exclude black and low or moderate income persons from the County and that developers, including the Green Trails and Realcoa defendants, have conspired with the County to maintain these exclusionary housing practices. The individual plaintiffs allege that these actions violate their constitutional rights of equal protection and freedom of residence and travel, and the organizational plaintiffs contend that they are representing those persons whose rights have been violated. Planning for People Coalition also asserts the rights of its DuPage County members “to live in an unsegregated Du-Page County where they can send their children to racially and economically integrated public school facilities and otherwise make use of similarly integrated public facilities.”

More specifically, plaintiffs allege that DuPage County intentionally discourages developers from building low or moderate income housing in the County. They contend that, since the County’s zoning ordinance does not permit the construction of any multifamily dwellings unless the County issues a special use permit, and since low or moderate income housing cannot be built except in multifamily dwellings, a developer must apply to the County before building such housing. The plaintiffs allege that County officials, by making public statements discouraging the entrance of blacks and low or moderate income families into the County, by seeking assurances from developers at zoning hearings that their proposed housing will exclude such families, and by advocating, in informal contacts with developers, the building of housing only for the relatively wealthy, deter developers from applying for special usé permits to build low and moderate income housing. Because of these practices, plaintiffs argue, developers, aware of the desires of the County and of the high cost of making applications for development permits, refrain from proposing law or moderate income housing in DuPage County.

Furthermore, plaintiffs allege that developers have conspired with the County to exclude low and moderate income housing. Plaintiffs contend that developers cooperate with the County’s housing practices, not only to comply with the wishes of County officials, but also to exploit the economic opportunities of an exclusionary housing market in the Chicago metropolitan area.

II. ANALYSIS OF WARTH v. SELDIN

Defendants contend that the Supreme Court decision in Warth v. Seldin, supra, [42]*42requires us to dismiss this case because the plaintiffs do not have standing to bring it.

In Warth, individual and organizational plaintiffs from the Rochester, New York metropolitan area, claimed that the Penfield, New York zoning ordinance, by its terms and as enforced, excluded low and moderate income persons from living in the town. The plaintiffs included low and moderate income nonresidents who wanted to move into Penfield, and an organization which alleged that its Pen-field members had been deprived of living in a racially and ethnically integrated community. The plaintiffs alleged that the town zoning ordinance allocated 98 per cent of Penfield’s vacant land to single-family detached housing; that it imposed unreasonable requirements relating to lot size, set back, floor area, and habitable space which increased the cost of housing; that only 0.3 per cent of the land available for residential construction was allocated to multifamily structures, and that

“in furtherance of a policy of exclusionary zoning, . . . the defendant members of Penfield’s Town, Zoning, and Planning Boards had acted in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner: they had delayed action on proposals for low- and moderate-cost housing for inordinate periods of time; denied such proposals for arbitrary and insubstantial reasons; refused to grant necessary variances and permits, or to allow tax abatements; failed to provide necessary support services for low- and moderate-cost housing projects; and had amended the ordinance to make approval of such projects virtually impossible. Warth v. Seldin, at 495-96, 95 S.Ct. at 2203.

The defendants contended that both the individual and organizational plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit and the Supreme Court, 5-4, agreed.

Mr.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Jaimes v. Toledo Metropolitan Housing Authority
758 F.2d 1086 (Sixth Circuit, 1985)
Hope, Inc. v. County of DuPage
717 F.2d 1061 (Seventh Circuit, 1983)
Huertas v. East River Housing Corp.
81 F.R.D. 641 (S.D. New York, 1979)
United States General, Inc. v. City of Joliet
432 F. Supp. 346 (N.D. Illinois, 1977)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
70 F.R.D. 38, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16832, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/planning-for-people-coalition-v-county-of-dupage-ilnd-1976.