April 29, 2003 MEDIA RELEASE
Residents reach settlement with Town of Tarboro on discrimination lawsuit
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Ms. Minnie White, a Tarboro resident and a plaintiff in the lawsuit,
tells her story at the April 29, 2003 media conference in Tarboro, NC.
Pictured (l-r) are: Pamela Thombs (attorney, Land Loss Prevention
Project), Ms. White, George Hausen (executive director, LANC), John
Keller (supervising attorney, LANC- Wilson Office), Mrs. Linda Ruffin
(Tarboro resident) and Laura Glasgow (paralegal, LANC-Wilson Office).
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(Tarboro, NC) – Two years after filing a lawsuit alleging unfair housing
practices, Tarboro residents and the Town of Tarboro have reached a settlement
with the Town of Tarboro.
The settlement opens the door for the development of affordable multi-family
housing in areas that had been restricted by the Town’s changes to its Unified
Development Ordinance (UDO) following the Hurricane Floyd floods.
"We wanted to see our clients have a reasonable chance to return to affordable
housing in Tarboro, their home town," declared Hazel Mack-Hilliard, senior
managing attorney for Legal Aid of North Carolina-Wilson Office, who led the team of
attorneys who challenged the restrictions. "We believe that the removal of the
May 2000 amendments to Tarboro’s zoning ordinance will bring developers back to
Tarboro and renew interest in building affordable housing."
In the settlement, the Town of Tarboro agreed to restore all land that its
zoning changes had removed from multi-family apartment construction and to
reduce some costly requirements for setbacks, fencing, traffic studies and
on-site management. The Town also agreed to pay the named plaintiffs a total of
$95,500 for damages, including $21,000 to the NC Fair Housing Center, a
statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to equal housing opportunity.
"We alleged in the lawsuit that our clients had been harmed by the Town’s
moratorium and zoning changes," noted Mack-Hilliard. "In our view, it appeared
that both the moratorium and the zoning ordinance were discriminatory and needed
either to be modified or to be set aside, which the Town of Tarboro ultimately
agreed to do as part of the settlement."
In September 1999, East Tarboro, primarily a low-income, African-American
community, was flooded and devastated by Hurricane Floyd. With no alternative
rental housing available, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) set up
a temporary trailer park, the Keehlin FEMA Temporary Housing Site, in Tarboro to
help house those who had lost their residences in the flood.
Two developers approached the Town of Tarboro in late 1999 and early 2000 to
seek permission to build affordable multi-family apartments, with funding coming
through the NC Housing Finance Agency. However, at an emergency meeting of the
Tarboro Town Council in March 2000, the Town adopted a moratorium on all
multi-family construction. Then in May 2000, the UDO was amended to remove
certain tracts of land from apartment construction and to impose substantial
restrictions and costly requirements to the remaining parcels of land where
apartments could be built. One developer dropped its plan to build altogether;
the other developer, Pendergrant, Inc., saw its plans for Hawthorne Court
Apartments delayed for many months.
In April 2001, after having been contacted by the East Tarboro residents,
attorneys from Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) began to examine the zoning changes and
the availability of land after the new UDO.
"We found that Tarboro’s May 2000 ordinances had dramatically reduced the
amount of land available in Tarboro upon to build multi-family apartments in
Tarboro where decent and affordable multi-family housing was already in short
supply," stated Mack-Hilliard, "Simply put, those people who had lost their
housing during the floods were now locked out of Tarboro by the Town’s
ordinances. We could not allow apparently discriminatory and unfair ordinances
to, in effect, kick minority residents out of town."
During the summer of 2001, a litigation team from multiple nonprofit, legal
services organizations was assembled to meet with some of the residents who had
previously lived in East Tarboro rental housing and to consider possible courses
of action. The team included attorneys from LANC, the North Carolina Justice &
Community Development Center, the Land Loss Prevention Project, local private
counsel and the NC Fair Housing Center (NCFHC).
"The Center contacted many public and private multi-family developers who felt
that the zoning ordinance passed by the Town of Tarboro would add tens of
thousands of dollars to development costs and would make the future projects
unprofitable," said Stella Adams, NCFHC’s executive director. "While we were
pleased to see that Hawthorne Court was being constructed through our efforts,
the Center joined with the individual residents to ensure that multi-family
housing would be a viable option for Tarboro families in the future."
Fourteen Tarboro residents became named plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in
September 2001. The residents sued the Town of Tarboro. In their complaint, the
residents alleged that the Town discriminated against them on the basis of race
and familial status in violation of the Fair Housing Act when it adopted the
March 2000 moratorium on multi-family housing and amended its UDO in May 2000.
Following a year of discovery that included dozens of depositions, the
residents and the Town agreed to mediation in January 2003. During mediation,
the Town agreed to the changes to the UDO and monetary damages for the
plaintiffs. The residents in turn modified their damages claims against the
Town.
"The NC Fair Housing Center is extremely pleased with this result," stated
Adams, "and our congratulations to the Tarboro residents and to the legal aid
community for its commitment to ensure equal justice. We also hope that this
will serve as a cautionary tale to other communities that would use their
governmental powers to deny housing opportunities to people of color or families
with children."
Mack-Hilliard agreed. "We think that the Tarboro situation resulted in a
win-win agreement," remarked Mack-Hilliard. "Everybody deserves the opportunity
to have a decent place to live. And in this case, citizens spoke up to ensure
that such fair housing opportunity is available in Tarboro."
Legal Aid of North Carolina is a 501(c)3, nonprofit organization that provides
free, legal representation in civil matters to eligible clients in North
Carolina through 25 offices and four project units across the state.
Click
here
to view related article regarding LANC receiving NCLIHC's "Sister Barbara
Sullivan Award".
CONTACTS: Hazel Mack-Hilliard (Senior Managing Attorney
LANC-Wilson Office, Wilson, NC)
252-291-6851; E-mail:
hazelM@legalaidnc.org
George R. Hausen, Jr. (Executive Director
LANC, Raleigh, NC)
919-856-2130; E-mail: georgeh@legalaidnc.org
Dock Kornegay (Director, Public Relations & Development
Raleigh, NC)
919-856-2132; E-mail: dockk@legalaidnc.org
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Legal Aid of North Carolina is a statewide, nonprofit law firm that
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