City of Edmonds v. Oxford House, Inc.

Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Fair Housing Act (FHA or Act) prohibits discrimination in housing against, inter alios, persons with handicaps. Section 807(b)(1) of the Act entirely exempts from the FHA's compass “any reasonable local, State, or Federal restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling.” This case presents the question whether a provision in petitioner City of Edmonds' zoning code qualifies for § 3607(b)(1)'s complete exemption from FHA scrutiny. The provision, governing areas zoned for single-family dwelling units, defines “family” as “persons [without regard to number] related by genetics, adoption, or marriage, or a group of five or fewer [unrelated] persons.”

The defining provision at issue describes who may compose a family unit; it does not prescribe “ the maximum number of occupants” a dwelling unit may house. We hold that § 3607(b)(1) does not exempt prescriptions of the family-defining kind, i.e., provisions designed to foster the family character of a neighborhood. Instead, § 3607(b)(1)'s absolute exemption removes from the FHA's scope only total occupancy limits, i.e., numerical ceilings that serve to prevent overcrowding in living quarters.


I

In the summer of 1990, respondent Oxford House opened a group home in the City of Edmonds, Washington (City), for 10 to 12 adults recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. The group home, called Oxford House-Edmonds, is located in a neighborhood zoned for single-family residences. Upon learning that Oxford House had leased and was operating a home in Edmonds, the City issued criminal citations to the owner and a resident of the house. The citations charged violation of the zoning code rule that defines who may live in single-family dwelling units. The occupants of such units must compose a “family,” and family, under the City's defining rule, “means an individual or two or more persons related by genetics, adoption, or marriage, or a group of five or fewer persons who are not related by genetics, adoption, or marriage.” Oxford House-Edmonds houses more than five unrelated persons, and therefore does not conform to the code.

Oxford House asserted reliance on the Fair Housing Act, which declares it unlawful “[t]o discriminate in the sale or rental, or to otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any buyer or renter because of a handicap of . . . that buyer or renter.” The parties have stipulated, for purposes of this litigation, that the residents of Oxford House-Edmonds “are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts and are handicapped persons within the meaning” of the Act. App. 106.

Discrimination covered by the FHA includes “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford [handicapped] person[s] equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” Oxford House asked Edmonds to make a “reasonable accommodation” by allowing it to remain in the single-family dwelling it had leased. Group homes for recovering substance abusers, Oxford urged, need 8 to 12 residents to be financially and therapeutically viable. Edmonds declined to permit Oxford House to stay in a single-family residential zone, but passed an ordinance listing group homes as permitted uses in multifamily and general commercial zones.

Edmonds sued Oxford House in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, seeking a declaration that the FHA does not constrain the City's zoning code family definition rule. Oxford House counterclaimed under the FHA, charging the City with failure to make a “reasonable accommodation” permitting maintenance of the group home in a single-family zone. The United States filed a separate action on the same FHA “reasonable accommodation” ground, and the two cases were consolidated. Edmonds suspended its criminal enforcement actions pending resolution of the federal litigation.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court held that ECDC § 21.30.010, defining “family,” is exempt from the FHA under § 3607(b)(1) as a “reasonable . . . restrictio[n] regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed; holding § 3607(b)(1)'s absolute exemption inapplicable, the Court of Appeals remanded the cases for further consideration of the claims asserted by Oxford House and the United States.

II

The sole question before the Court is whether Edmonds' family composition rule qualifies as a “restrictio[n] regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling” within the meaning of the FHA's absolute exemption. In answering this question, we are mindful of the Act's stated policy “to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States.” We also note precedent recognizing the FHA's “broad and inclusive” compass, and therefore according a “generous construction” to the Act's complaint-filing provision. Accordingly, we regard this case as an instance in which an exception to “a general statement of policy” is sensibly read “narrowly in order to preserve the primary operation of the [policy].”

A

Congress enacted § 3607(b)(1) against the backdrop of an evident distinction between municipal land-use restrictions and maximum occupancy restrictions.

Land-use restrictions designate “districts in which only compatible uses are allowed and incompatible uses are excluded.” These restrictions typically categorize uses as single-family residential, multiple-family residential, commercial, or industrial.

Land use restrictions aim to prevent problems caused by the “pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.” In particular, reserving land for single-family residences preserves the character of neighborhoods, securing “zones where family values, youth values, and the blessings of quiet seclusion and clean air make the area a sanctuary for people.” To limit land use to single-family residences, a municipality must define the term “family”; thus family composition rules are an essential component of single-family residential use restrictions.

Maximum occupancy restrictions, in contradistinction, cap the number of occupants per dwelling, typically in relation to available floor space or the number and type of rooms. These restrictions ordinarily apply uniformly to all residents of all dwelling units. Their purpose is to protect health and safety by preventing dwelling overcrowding. . . .

We recognized this distinction between maximum occupancy restrictions and land-use restrictions in Moore v. East Cleveland. In Moore, the Court held unconstitutional the constricted definition of “family” contained in East Cleveland's housing ordinance. East Cleveland's ordinance “select[ed] certain categories of relatives who may live together and declare[d] that others may not”; in particular, East Cleveland's definition of “family” made “a crime of a grandmother's choice to live with her grandson.” In response to East Cleveland's argument that its aim was to prevent overcrowded dwellings, streets, and schools, we observed that the municipality's restrictive definition of family served the asserted, and undeniably legitimate, goals “marginally, at best.” Another East Cleveland ordinance, we noted, “specifically addressed . . . the problem of overcrowding”; that ordinance tied “the maximum permissible occupancy of a dwelling to the habitable floor area.” Justice Stewart, in dissent, also distinguished restrictions designed to “preserv[e] the character of a residential area,” from prescription of “a minimum habitable floor area per person,” in the interest of community health and safety.

Section 3607(b)(1)'s language-“restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling”-surely encompasses maximum occupancy restrictions. But the formulation does not fit family composition rules typically tied to land-use restrictions. In sum, rules that cap the total number of occupants in order to prevent overcrowding of a dwelling “plainly and unmistakably,” fall within § 3607(b)(1)'s absolute exemption from the FHA's governance; rules designed to preserve the family character of a neighborhood, fastening on the composition of households rather than on the total number of occupants living quarters can contain, do not.

B

Turning specifically to the City's Community Development Code, we note that the provisions Edmonds invoked against Oxford House, are classic examples of a use restriction and complementing family composition rule. These provisions do not cap the number of people who may live in a dwelling. In plain terms, they direct that dwellings be used only to house families. Captioned “USES,” ECDC § 16.20.010 provides that the sole “Permitted Primary Us[e]” in a single-family residential zone is “[s]ingle-family dwelling units.” Edmonds itself recognizes that this provision simply “defines those uses permitted in a single family residential zone.”

A separate provision caps the number of occupants a dwelling may house, based on floor area:

“Floor Area. Every dwelling unit shall have at least one room which shall have not less than 120 square feet of floor area. Other habitable rooms, except kitchens, shall have an area of not less than 70 square feet. Where more than two persons occupy a room used for sleeping purposes, the required floor area shall be increased at the rate of 50 square feet for each occupant in excess of two.” ECDC § 19.10.000 (adopting Uniform Housing Code § 503(b) (1988)).

Edmonds nevertheless argues that its family composition rule, falls within § 3607(b)(1), the FHA exemption for maximum occupancy restrictions, because the rule caps at five the number of unrelated persons allowed to occupy a single-family dwelling. But Edmonds' family composition rule surely does not answer the question: “What is the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a house?” So long as they are related “by genetics, adoption, or marriage,” any number of people can live in a house. Ten siblings, their parents and grandparents, for example, could dwell in a house in Edmonds' single-family residential zone without offending Edmonds' family composition rule.

Family living, not living space per occupant, is what ECDC § 21.30.010 describes. Defining family primarily by biological and legal relationships, the provision also accommodates another group association: Five or fewer unrelated people are allowed to live together as though they were family. This accommodation is the peg on which Edmonds rests its plea for § 3607(b)(1) exemption. Had the City defined a family solely by biological and legal links, § 3607(b)(1) would not have been the ground on which Edmonds staked its case. It is curious reasoning indeed that converts a family values preserver into a maximum occupancy restriction once a town adds to a related persons prescription “and also two unrelated persons.”

The parties have presented, and we have decided, only a threshold question: Edmonds' zoning code provision describing who may compose a “family” is not a maximum occupancy restriction exempt from the FHA under § 3607(b)(1). It remains for the lower courts to decide whether Edmonds' actions against Oxford House violate the FHA's prohibitions against discrimination set out in §§ 3604(f)(1)(A) and (f)(3)(B). For the reasons stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is

Affirmed.