Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: U.S. News - Zoning law, water usage

[Barb Bruns (barb]

> Very helpful post! -- especially the part about the Supreme Court decision --
> do you have any more info about the zoning law decision - re group homes?
> This case  could be of high interest to communities and coop folks
> nationwide.

The U.S. News & World Report article wasn't any more specific than "last
month's Supreme Court decision."  But I did some looking around, and it
appears that it refers to a May 15, 1995 case in which the city of 
Edmonds, WA had tried to block the establishment of a group home for 
recovering substance abusers.

Apparently, the decision (in the home's favor) was based on the Fair Housing 
Act, and focused on the definition of "family" (this was in an area of 
single-family homes) as opposed to health codes regulating the number of
people a specific structure may house.

I don't know that I'd automatically apply that to the context of cohousing
(as USN & WR did), but then I'm not familiar with the intricasies (and
extensibilities) of the law.

Maybe some of you folks in the Seattle area know more about this?

Barb
Cincinnati