Joyce Starling has lived in Mount Holly Gardens since 1972. The township has been buying homes to make way for redevelopment, but Starling doesn't want to leave.
When the U.S. Supreme Court justices meet on Friday to determine what cases they will hear in the next few weeks, one case will concern alleged discrimination and the Fair Housing Act.
It isn’t easy to get a case before the justices; they reject far more than they accept. But this particular case, docket number 11-1507, stems from a 10-year-old dispute between a group of citizens and Mount Holly Township that has implications far beyond the South Jersey township — it could clarify the definition of racial discrimination and affect the banking and lending industries.
Those are the overriding issues. What most concerns Joyce Starling of the Mount Holly Gardens section of the township, though, is whether or not she can remain in her home.
“I bought this house to stay in until Jesus comes to take me home,” she said, standing in her living room.
In 2002, the township declared the 30-acre neighborhood known as Mount Holly Gardens — a collection of post-war row houses — blighted and in need of redevelopment. It was an impoverished area and housed a disproportionate number of the township’s black and Hispanic population.
“About 25 years ago, the Gardens had become the center of crime in Mount Holly,” said James Maley, of Maley Associates, which has represented the township through a decade of legal challenges. “There were murders, drug activity. It was a really bad place.”
The township drew up several plans for a mixed-use neighborhood with apartments, townhouses and a retail center.
To make way for the redevelopment, the township offered to buy the 329 homes and raze them. It offered owners between $30,000 and $50,000 for their homes, in addition to $15,000 for relocation expenses and a $20,000 no-interest loan toward a mortgage for a new property anywhere the homeowner desired. The loan doesn’t have to be repaid until the new property is sold.
The total package could be as much as $85,000.
But once the area was declared blighted, homeowners couldn’t sell their property privately — no buyer would be interested in a house the town wants to tar down. And hardly anyone could afford the proposed new housing, even with the packages offered by the township.
That’s when the Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, a group that had formed in the 1970s but had been dormant for years, took the township to court.
In the intervening 10 years, Mount Holly has purchased most of the homes and razed them. According to some estimates, the township has spent upwards of $18 million to make the area attractive to developers.
New Jersey laws leave a lot of room when it comes to defining blight. Starling’s neighborhood now looks more like open space than a crime-ridden housing development. Where homes were attached eight-to-10 in a row, now several stand alone, or with only a single attached neighbor. The few homes that remain are barely within shouting distance of each other.
Many have tar or stucco on an outside wall where once there was an adjoining house. Roofs were knocked askew and walls weakened when wrecking crews took down several homes and left one standing.
A passerby walks past one of the remaining buildings in Mount Holly Gardens. At one time, eight to 10 homes were attached. When the township demolished the bought-out homes, they tar-papered or stuccoed the remaining common wall.
The lawns are mowed. Garbage was stacked neatly at the curb for pickup on a recent morning.
Starling has red flowers planted on the side of her house. She has lived there since 1972. At 78 and widowed, she does all her own yard work. She recently had new gutters and leaders installed. A 93-year-old neighbor just had her bathroom redone.
According to local officials, though, in 1999, these 30 acres accounted for 28 percent of crime in the township. Many of the houses had been neglected and fell into disrepair. Homeowners had paved their back yards to use as car ports, which caused local flooding.
Starling doesn’t deny there were problems, but she blames absentee landlords who rented to bad tenants. She remembers a community in which “we’d all go to church together, we’d all pray together. There was a playground for children and everyone would watch out for everyone else.”
What’s before the Supreme Court, should it agree to hear the case, is bigger than the Gardens or Mount Holly. It could decide whether unintended discrimination — or disparate impact — is illegal under the Fair Housing Act. Despite decades of court opinions recognizing disparate impact, some argue the law lacks specific language supporting the doctrine.
“It’s a question of statutory interpretation with huge consequences,” said Kyle Rosenkrans, visiting clinical professor at Seton Hall University School of Law’s Center for Social Justice. “If the court sides with the township, that will have an enormous impact on housing-related civil rights litigation,” he said.
Disparate impact occurs when a government policy affects a greater number of minorities than non-minorities, even though it isn’t the policy’s intent. Every state court said Mount Holly had the right to declare the Gardens in need of redevelopment, but they didn’t address the unintended discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.
According to the 2000 Census, which is when the township started to consider redevelopment, nearly 20 percent of the Gardens residents were non-Hispanic white, 46 percent were black and 29 percent were Hispanic. It housed the highest concentration of minorities in Mount Holly, the county seat for Burlington County, where the median household income is $43,300. Household income in the Gardens was about half that.
A decision for the citizens could cost banks and lending institutions. The Justice Department, which has expressed interest in the case, enforces disparate impact policies against mortgage lenders. Last year, Bank of America settled a suit brought by black and Hispanic borrowers alleging discrimination for $335 million. Wells Fargo paid $125 million in a similar settlement.
During the court’s term last year, it agreed to hear a similar case, Gallagher vs. Magner, but Magner withdrew its appeal before arguments were heard.
Those are issues best left for the nation’s top court. For Starling, it’s much simpler.
"I like where I live," she said, surveying the small property she's called home for 40 years. "As long as I'm living in my home, I'm happy."
Tom De Poto: tdepoto@starledger.com, or 973-392-4270