## Facts

- A nonprofit sought to open a temporary shelter for abused women and children in the City of Butler, Pennsylvania, using property partly funded by a federal housing grant tied to the specific building.
- The City’s zoning ordinance classified the facility as a “transitional dwelling” and limited such dwellings to six persons plus a supervisory family or person.
- After a public hearing, the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission recommended conditional approval subject to a six-resident maximum (counting children; excluding staff).
- The shelter operator asserted that the six-person cap prevented a financially viable shelter at that location because it needed to house more than six residents.
- Three women proceeding under pseudonyms sued the City and its mayor for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the cap denied battered women and their children access to temporary housing.
- The district court denied preliminary injunctive relief and later granted summary judgment for defendants on all claims.
- Plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the six-person occupancy limit for transitional dwellings violated substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment as an arbitrary exercise of the police power.
2. Whether the occupancy limit impermissibly burdened First Amendment associational rights of shelter residents.
3. Whether the limit violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating “because of sex,” including under a disparate-impact theory.
4. Whether the limit violated the Fair Housing Act by unlawfully discriminating based on familial status (families with children), including under a disparate-impact theory.

## Decision

- The court affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the substantive due process claim, applying deferential rational-basis review to zoning.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the First Amendment claim, holding the ordinance was content-neutral and any associational burden was incidental and justified by legitimate zoning objectives.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for defendants on the FHA sex-discrimination claim, concluding the resident cap was facially neutral and the record did not show it fell more harshly on women than men.
- The court vacated and remanded the judgment on the FHA familial-status claim because the record was insufficient to decide whether counting children within the low occupancy cap created a disparate impact on families with children and, if so, whether the City’s justifications sufficed.

## Legal Principles

- Zoning occupancy limits are generally reviewed under rational basis and will be upheld if conceivably related to legitimate governmental interests such as density control and neighborhood compatibility.
- A content-neutral zoning restriction aimed at land-use and density, not expression or viewpoint, generally does not violate the First Amendment merely because it affects a group living arrangement.
- Under the FHA, a facially neutral rule does not establish sex discrimination without evidence that it disproportionately and materially burdens one sex compared to the other, not merely that it burdens a facility serving a largely female population.
- FHA disparate-impact claims require a showing of disproportionate adverse effect on a protected class and consideration of the defendant’s legitimate, non-discriminatory objectives; an undeveloped record may require remand.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit sustained the City’s six-person transitional-dwelling limit against constitutional challenges and an FHA sex-discrimination claim, but remanded for further proceedings on whether the limit unlawfully burdened families with children under the FHA’s familial-status protections.


Doe v. City of Butler, 892 F.2d 315 (3d Cir. 1989)