NEW ORLEANS, LA - A fair-housing group is asking a federal judge to overturn St. Bernard Parish's moratorium on multi-family developments of five or more units. In a motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center says the moratorium violates the federal fair housing act because it targets minorities. The group said in a news release that the moratorium has a "disproportionate impact" on minorities because prior to Hurricane Katrina 20 percent of white residents were renters, compared to 45 percent of black residents and 31 percent of Hispanic residents.
The St. Bernard Parish Council approved the one-year moratorium in September. Parish officials have said the moratorium was put in place while the parish revises its building codes.
The fair housing group says that the council's moratorium violates a February consent order that settled the Fair Housing Action Center's lawsuit against the parish challenging the council's September 2006 adoption of a restrictive home rental ordinance. That ordinance required council approval for owners to rent single-family homes that were not rentals prior to Hurricane Katrina to anyone who was not a blood relative of the owner. The council amended the ordinance in December 2006 to remove the blood-relative clause.
In the settlement, the parish did not admit guilt but agreed to pay $32,500 in damages and $123,772 in attorney's fees. U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance in August upheld the parish's amended home rental ordinance, ruling in the parish's favor in a separate lawsuit brought by a group of property investors.
Lucia Blacksher, an attorney for the fair housing group, said the motion filed Thursday asks U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan, who handled the suit stemming from the rental ordinance, to enforce the consent order. Provident Realty Advisors Inc., a developer that wants to build four multi-family housing units, also seeks to intervene in the case.
Source: NOLA.com