September 18, 2018
Developer Brad Hoyt has amended his lawsuit against the City of St. Anthony, upping his claims from three to four. His latest salvo against the city claims the city “engaged in disparate treatment” of the former residents of Lowry Grove, “which violated the Fair Housing Act.” The amended complaint was filed September 13.
The first three claims
The first three claims or “counts” were presented in the original lawsuit filed August 20.
The first count accuses City Manager Mark Casey, city planner consultant Breanna Rothstein and the city of “fraud/misrepresentation” and “fraud in the inducement of purchase agreement.” The suit alleges that the defendants deliberately supplied false information to Hoyt to get him to purchase the Lowry Grove property. The complaint argues that the city wanted to close the mobile home park, but couldn’t do it by using its power of eminent domain, so it used Hoyt’s company, The Village LLC, to do it for them. Then, the complaint says, “the City had no intention of allowing density of more than 25 units per acre” and “would use density as its basis to deny The Village’s project, there by insuring that affordable housing would not be built.” Count One also states, “they City and the Mayor considered and wanted a different developer to have the development opportunity.”
The second count alleges that the city, Mayor Jerry Faust, Casey, Rothstein, her employer, WSB, the city’s attorney Jay Lindgren, and Stacie Kvilvang, a certified independent professional municipal consultant and her employer, Ehlers & Associates “wrongfully and illegally destroyed” Hoyt’s rights to develop the mobile home sight.
The third count says Hoyt was deprived of his equal protection rights as a U.S. citizen as provided by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Presumably, his argument is based on this sentence: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The fourth count
Preceded by a section that discusses the size of the Hispanic population in Hennepin County, the fourth and most recent count cites the Fair Housing Act, which is an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It alleges, once again, that “The City, Casey, and Rothstein defrauded Plaintiffs [Hoyt and his companies], manipulating them to effect the closure of the mobile home park and thus ridding the City of the low income residents of color and diversity. By and through its actions, the City, Casey, and Rothstein engaged in disparate treatment of the former residents, which violated the Fair Housing Act.”
The complaint continues, “Once the mobile home park was closed, Defendants further violated the Fair Housing Act by depriving Plaintiffs the ability to construct the planned affordable housing.”
A spokesman for Hoyt said the fourth count was intended to be included in the original complaint.
At the August 28 City Council meeting, Mayor Jerry Faust said the council met in a work session at the end of May to hear The Village’s proposal for Tax Increment Financing (TIF). More than $18 million was proposed. Faust said no decision was made at the meeting, and the developer has not brought the proposal up at a regular City Council meeting since then.
The complaint, which demands a trial by jury, has been assigned to Judge Patrick A. Schiltz. A hearing date has not been published.
The Lowry Grove mobile home park was at the corner of Stinson Blvd. and Kenzie Terrace.
Fair Housing Act
Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act), as amended, prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions, based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status (including children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women, and people securing custody of children under the age of 18), and disability. Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, www.hud.gov.