Connecticut Housing Developer Admits No Liability, But Coughs Up $40K Anyway To Settle Fair Housing Complaint, Resolving Allegations Of Race Discrimination Against Rental Applicants

In Stamford, Connecticut, the Stamford Advocate reports:

• Building and Land Technology’s Harbor Point development has agreed to a $40,000 settlement over allegations of discrimination from the Connecticut Fair Housing Center.(1)
  
  BLT, Harbor Point and Prime Realty agreed in November to settle a complaint regarding housing discrimination based on race without admitting liability, the center said in a statement [this week].
  
  In 2014 clients Tamica McKune and Matthew Notice reported to the center instances of racial discrimination in their dealings with BLT, Harbor Point and Prime Realty, naming the high-end Yale and Towne building specifically.
  
  McKune and Notice told the Connecticut Fair Housing Center that as affordable housing applicants they were not permitted to tour apartments prior to the submitting applications. These specific complaints came among several other similar reports that year.
  
  Upon investigation, the center said it found significant evidence of disparate treatment between below market and market rate applicants and differential treatment based on race, even among the affordable housing applicants.
  
  The center uncovered one instance an African American prospective affordable housing applicant who was denied a showing by Harbor Point, while a white prospective below market rate applicant was show a model unit without issue.
  
  This spurred the Connecticut Fair Housing Center to file a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, alleging that the companies violated the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition on discrimination based on race.

For more, see Stamford’s Harbor Point pays $40K in racial discrimination settlement.

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(1) The Connecticut Fair Housing Center is a nonprofit fair housing organization working statewide, providing investigative and legal services to Connecticut residents who believe they have been the victims of housing discrimination. The Center also provides education and conducts outreach on fair housing and fair lending issues throughout the state.