Opinion ID: 109301
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Associations Including Building Concerns

Text: Two of the petitioners are organizations among whose members are building concerns. Both of these organizations, Home Builders and Housing Council, alleged that these concerns have attempted to build in Penfield low- and moderate-income housing, but have been stymied by the zoning ordinance and refusal to grant individual relief therefrom. Specifically, Home Builders, a trade association of concerns engaged in constructing and maintaining residential housing in the Rochester area, alleged that [d]uring the past 15 years, over 80% of the private housing units constructed in the Town of Penfield have been constructed by [its] members. App. 147. Because of respondents' refusal to grant relief from Penfield's restrictive housing statutes, members of Home Builders could not proceed with planned low- and moderate-income housing projects, id., at 157, and thereby lost profits. Id., at 156. Housing Council numbers among its members at least 17 groups involved in the development and construction of low- and middle-income housing. In particular, one member, Penfield Better Homes,  is and has been actively attempting to develop moderate income housing in . . . Penfield (emphasis supplied), id., at 174, but has been unable to secure the necessary approvals. Ibid. The Court finds that these two organizations lack standing to seek prospective relief for basically the same reasons: none of their members is, as far as the allegations show, currently involved in developing a particular project. Thus, Home Builders has failed to show the existence of any injury to its members of sufficient immediacy and ripeness to warrant judicial intervention, ante, at 516 (emphasis supplied), while the controversy between respondents and Better Homes, however vigorous it may once have been, [has not] remained a live, concrete dispute. Ante, at 517. Again, the Court ignores the thrust of the complaints and asks petitioners to allege the impossible. According to the allegations, the building concerns' experience in the past with Penfield officials has shown any plans for low- and moderate-income housing to be futile for, again according to the allegations, the respondents are engaged in a purposeful, conscious scheme to exclude such housing. Particularly with regard to a low- or moderate-income project, the cost of litigating, with respect to any particular project, the legality of a refusal to approve it may well be prohibitive. And the merits of the exclusion of this or that project is not at the heart of the complaint; the claim is that respondents will not approve any project which will provide residences for low- and moderate-income people. When this sort of pattern-and-practice claim is at the heart of the controversy, allegations of past injury, which members of both of these organizations have clearly made, and of a future intent, if the barriers are cleared, again to develop suitable housing for Penfield, should be more than sufficient. The past experiences, if proved at trial, will give credibility and substance to the claim of interest in future building activity in Penfield. These parties, if their allegations are proved, certainly have the requisite personal stake in the outcome of this controversy, and the Court's conclusion otherwise is only a conclusion that this controversy may not be litigated in a federal court. I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.