Arlington settles Fair Housing Act lawsuit over low-income development for $395,000

Arlington has agreed to pay $395,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging it violated the Fair Housing Act when it didn’t support an affordable housing development to serve low-income families with children, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

City Attorney Teris Solis said at the council’s Tuesday meeting that the city maintained it did nothing wrong and was settling to prevent further costs from court fees and continuing fighting the accusation.

The settlement, which the city approved Tuesday and must still be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, resolves the suit filed in 2017.

The suit alleged the city violated the Fair Housing Act when it blocked the development of the project proposed by Community Development Inc., which would have been financed by the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.

Solis said that Arlington will hold training for the City Council and members of committees to prevent future problems with the Fair Housing Act and that the city policy that led to the suit was already changed and in-line with the act’s mandates before the suit was filed.

“Local governments that resort to discriminatory tactics to block the development of affordable housing and to lock out families with children will be held accountable,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the release. “This settlement should send a strong message to jurisdictions across the country that we will use the law to protect families with children from discriminatory denials of housing opportunities.”