The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has ruled that the Village of Garden City, on Long Island, and the village’s board of trustees (the Garden City defendants) violated the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA),1 based on theories of disparate treatment and disparate impact, and also violated other federal civil rights laws and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when they eliminated “multi-family residential group” (R-M) zoning and endorsed “residential-townhouse” (R-T) zoning after they received public opposition to the prospect of affordable housing in the village.2
After an 11-day bench trial in the case, Judge Arthur D. Spatt found that Garden City’s zoning decision tended to perpetuate segregation in that community.
