The town of Wolcott will rescind a new zoning ordinance and permit the operation of a widely opposed group home for mentally disabled senior citizens in a residential neighborhood in order to settle a housing discrimination suit by the federal government and the home operators.
Wolcott’s decision comes just weeks after a federal jury, in a similar case involving opposition by Cromwell to a group home near a municipal school complex, ruled against that town and gave the group home operators there a remarkably high, $5 million punitive damage award. Another housing dispute is growing and could move to court in Danbury, where neighbors are trying to block the permanent conversion of a motel purchased by the state to a homeless shelter.
In the Wolcott case, the town agreed under the settlement to pay $10,000 to the federal government and another $350,000 to group home operator SELF and a real estate company that will lease the remodeled group home at 159 Old Bound Line Road to SELF.
The federal government, which enforces anti-discrimination provisions in federal housing law, praised the settlement, in which it took the lead.
“Towns don’t have the right to enact zoning laws that make housing for persons with disabilities unavailable,” said Principal Deputy Secretary Demetria McCain of the U.S. department of Housing and Urban Development. “HUD commends the Department of Justice for holding municipalities accountable for violating our nation’s housing laws and we look forward to working together to do even more to protect the rights of persons with disabilities.”
Wolcott’s mayor and the city’s attorney could not be reached to discuss the settlement, which the Department of Justice announced Monday.
SELF and the owner of the group home began pressing Wolcott for a special use permit to turn 159 Old Bound Line Road into what is described in the suit as a “home for older adults with mental disabilities” in 2015. There was organized local opposition from the outset, with neighbors demanding to know the nature of the mental illnesses or disabilities of the prospective residents — even though the home had originally been built, zoned and operated as a group home for adolescent girls with metal illnesses or disabilities for at least two decades.
In May 2016, with the SELF application pending and likely to win approval under then-existing zoning laws, Wolcott amended the laws to block the conversion to senior housing by prohibiting group homes for adults with disabilities. Local opposition to the senior housing proposal continued during and after the zone change and the SELF application ultimately was denied.
The case in Cromwell involved strong, local opposition, but went to a jury, which concluded the town’s opposition to a group home for men with mental disabilities violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act. Cromwell opposed the home near the town school complex, even though it had permitted a similar group home to operate in a nonresidential neighborhood for years. The operators of the proposed Cromwell home ultimately withdrew their application in the face of local opposition and the jury awarded the $5 million to punish the town for years of opposition.
In Danbury, the local zoning board has rejected an application by a Stamford nonprofit to permanently convert an 86-room motel to an emergency shelter. The motel has been operating temporarily as a shelter for much of the pandemic. The state used about $4.5 million in federal pandemic relief money to purchase the motel last spring with plans in the works to use it as a permanent emergency shelter. Neighbors oppose the plan.
