Madison Suburb Cited In Affordable Housing Rejection

Shorewood Hills, just west of Madison, is on the wrong end of a complaint about affordable housing.

I will post the text of the ACLU's release below.

It's a less raucous environment, but the issues have similarities to the New Berlin situation.

Additional background for New Berlin brouhaha, here.

From th eACLU:

Resident Asks HUD to Investigate Shorewood Hills for Fair Housing Violation
For Immediate Release: August 13, 2010

Contact:

Karyn L. Rotker, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU of WI, 414-272-4032 x21, krotker@aclu-wi.org

On behalf of Shorewood Hills resident William H. Thomas, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin yesterday requested a federal investigation of the Village’s rejection of affordable family housing.

In his complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Mr. Thomas objects to the discriminatory effect of the Village’s Feburary, 2010, rejection of affordable housing.

Mr. Thomas is a long time resident of Shorewood Hills, a former member of its Plan Commission, and an outspoken advocate for housing diversity in the Village. He has long objected to Shorewood Hills’ de facto policy of excluding affordable housing - and the people who qualify for it, who are disproportionately persons of color - from the community.

“A developer wanted to build affordable housing in a perfect spot in Shorewood Hills,” noted Mr. Thomas. “He wanted to tear down Pyare Square - an obsolete, almost vacant office building, for which no one could think of a viable non-residential use, and replace it with affordable apartments and some green space.

That proposal gave our Village a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break with the deplorable exclusionary policies of its past, and to comply with Wisconsin’s Smart Growth mandates to ‘meet the housing needs of persons of all income levels,’ and ‘promote the availability of land for the development and redevelopment low-income and moderate income housing’ without any serious strain or pain. Although the Plan Commission had recommended the needed rezoning, the Board of Trustees denied it.”

Mr. Thomas’ attorney, the ACLU’s Karyn Rotker, noted that the Fair Housing Act prohibits actions that have a discriminatory effect, as well as intentionally discriminatory behavior. “Refusing to allow a developer to build housing that persons of color are proportionally more likely to need and use, especially in a less-diverse community like Shorewood Hills, can be unlawful. That’s especially true when the rejection of such housing is accompanied by the kinds of sudden changes in rules and priorities, and the negative statements about people who live in affordable housing, that occurred here.”

“I fear that the Board of Trustees of Shorewood Hills, as a body, does not feel morally or legally obligated to even allow, much less encourage, affordable housing in the Village, and that unless it is persuaded otherwise, it will exercise the discretion it has reserved itself to keep affordable housing out of Shorewood Hills indefinitely. I am hopeful that the Department of Housing and Urban Development will succeed in persuading it otherwise,” Mr. Thomas added.

–30--