Three nights ago on June 26, 2015 the Santa Fe City Council voted down “El Rio” housing plan presented as housing targeted for “young professionals.” Citizens complained “good plan, wrong spot” based on compatibility with regard to density among other reasons of the project.  See Santa Fe El Rio. Common local planning issue, right?  Not so fast. The day before on June 25, 2015 the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, held  there can be “Fair Housing Act ‘liability'” under the disparate impact legal doctrine. The court explained that “a decision to build low-income housing in blighted inner-city neighborhood instead of a suburb is discriminatory.”  Well, here the developer-builder wasn’t choosing to build in a blighted area but rather in an area provoking a “not in my backyard” reaction from citizens to which the City Council responded. The Court noted a city can be liable if it allows more tax credits in lower income neighborhoods than in higher income neighborhoods.  It seems to me that this expansionist ruling creates a bit of federal creep into an already complicated process for housing and development and the public process involved in local planning.  See Supreme Court on Disparate Impact Housing Claims. Stay tuned!