Supreme Court Accepts Case Claiming Property Code Cuts Affordable Rentals, Violates Fair Housing Act
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide a case involving a claim that a Minnesota city’s housing code clashes with the Fair Housing Act.
Rental property owners in St. Paul are arguing that housing code requirements will increase their costs and decrease the number of properties they are able to rent to African Americans, who make up a disproportionate number of low-income households, according to the petition for certiorari (PDF). The property owners claim city officials are violating the Fair Housing Act by aggressively enforcing the city code.
The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed the disparate impact suit by the property owners. The threshold issue, according to the cert petition, is whether disparate impact claims are recognizable under the Fair Housing Act. Most appeals courts allow such claims, the cert petition says, but they are divided on the analysis.
City officials argue in the cert petition that it is the property owners who are seeking to thwart the Fair Housing Act. “Respondents seek to avoid fixing up their properties to meet the minimum housing code because it will cut their profits and prevent them from renting out dilapidated homes,” the cert petition says. “This defeats the goal of the Fair Housing Act.”
SCOTUSblog has highlighted the case, Magner v. Gallagher, as a petition of the day.
