Quote:
Originally Posted by aaron38
I'll defer to you guys because I'm not a real estate agent, but is it really a violation or discrimination for a politician to comment on housing mix? For example if an alderman says "I'm being told by people that it's hard for families to find housing, that means there needs to be more 3-4 bedroom units in the mix", is that discriminating against people who don't have kids?
Is it discrimination against families to want affordable studios and 1 bedrooms?
If we're at the point where saying "I want more 4 bedrooms built" is a fair housing violation because it restricts supply of studios, then we have a massive housing shortage and should focus on that.
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But that's the thing, he isn't saying "I want 4 bedroom units", he is saying he wants "family housing". As a licensed broker I could lose my license, be fined up to $25k and possibly even serve jail time if I so much as said that, let alone went on the record with a newspaper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
^ The anti-discrimination aspects of Fair Housing apply only to real estate professionals, a politician can say what they want to say since they're not technically involved in the process of building, selling, or leasing the housing units.
Usually the enforcement of the law trends toward protection of dis-advantaged groups; for example, the law prohibits any discrimination based on familial status, but families with children are considered to be a dis-advantaged group while families or individuals without children are not. It can cut both ways, though - just as I can see a landlord in a big city apartment complex discriminating against families with kids, I could see a real estate agent in a religious part of the country discriminating against childless couples or non-traditional families, so it's important to have the law be neutral.
However, the mix of units a builder chooses to provide is not (in itself) a form of discrimination, outside of accessibility laws mandating a certain amount of accessible units. The law leaves the mix of units up to the builder and local zoning authorities to determine.
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Yes, but this is where I think it will eventually be litigated. We aren't talking about developer's choice of unit mix, we are talking about government representatives saying things that would be blatantly illegal if they were landlords, developers, or licensed agents. Again, it's not illegal for a developer to say "I want to build more 3 bedroom units" just as it's not illegal for them to say "I don't want to buy in inner city neighborhoods, I am going to invest only in the suburbs". But it would be illegal for them to say "I don't want to rent to unmarried couples" or "I don't want to invest in black neighborhoods so I'm investing only in the suburbs".
You are correct, however, that the law really only applies to landlords, brokers, bankers, etc. Where it becomes a sticky issue is that guess who is the biggest landlord in Chicago? The CHA which is a municipal corporation and very much subject to fair housing laws. The only reason aldermen have gotten away with saying these things so far is that the Mayor appoints the CHA board and the city council doesn't have direct control.
Which brings me to the argument I've posted here before: aldermen might not be able to be prosecuted individually under the fair housing act, BUT they might find themselves in Trumpesque hot water from a policy perspective at some point. What I mean by that is courts do not just consider the letter of the law and whether your proposal technically violates it, they consider context and intent. When Trump's "Muslim Ban" was manifested in the form a "ban that just happens to be all Muslim countries plus North Korea", the courts immediately struck it down because they considered the context and intent. They took the things Trump said and considered the law he proposed in the context of multiple quotes about how bad Muslims are and how he was going to ban them.
My question is how long until someone sues the city over a proposed zoning change (which is an ordinance, i.e. a law just like the muslim ban) because the Alderman sponsoring it has had multiple staffers state that the goal is to "stop too many white people from moving in" or to "provide more housing for families"? Just as Trump can't go around saying he's going to ban Muslims and expect the courts not to eventually attack his policy proposals with his words, alderman shouldn't expect to be able to parade around saying things that blatantly violate fair housing laws and expect not to eventually get the city, CHA, or their buddies who are affordable housing developers sued in the same manner.
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