## Facts

- Oconomowoc Residential Programs, Inc. (ORP), a state-licensed provider of community-based residential programs, sought to open a community living arrangement for six adults with traumatic brain injuries and/or developmental disabilities in a Milwaukee residential neighborhood.
- Milwaukee’s zoning scheme barred community living arrangements within 2,500 feet of another such facility, and the City’s Board of Zoning Appeals denied ORP a variance from that spacing rule.
- The record indicated a shortage of group homes offering supportive services suitable for individuals with brain injuries.
- The City justified denial based on concerns about “overconcentration” and increased emergency-service costs, but did not explain why proximity of two homes would cause greater service use than the same two homes spaced 2,500 feet apart.
- ORP and disability-rights intervenors asserted the variance was needed to allow people with disabilities an equal opportunity to live in an integrated residential setting.

## Issues

1. Whether denying a variance from the 2,500-foot spacing requirement was a failure to provide a reasonable accommodation required by the FHAA and ADA.
2. Whether the denial deprived individuals with disabilities of an equal opportunity to live in a residential neighborhood in an integrated community setting.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for ORP and the intervenors.
- The court held the City’s refusal to grant the variance constituted a failure to provide a reasonable accommodation under the FHAA and ADA.
- The court concluded the denial unlawfully limited disabled individuals’ equal opportunity to live in a residential neighborhood.
- The court found the City’s cost and “overconcentration” assertions speculative and insufficient to show undue burden or a fundamental alteration of the zoning program.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FHAA and ADA, a municipality must make reasonable exceptions to generally applicable zoning rules when necessary to afford persons with disabilities an equal opportunity to use and enjoy housing.
- An accommodation is required when it is reasonable and necessary, and it need not be granted only if it would impose undue financial or administrative burdens or fundamentally alter the zoning program.
- Generalized fears, unsupported predictions, or speculative cost concerns do not satisfy a municipality’s burden to justify refusing an otherwise reasonable accommodation.
- When material facts concerning necessity, reasonableness, and the municipality’s justifications are undisputed, reasonable-accommodation claims may be resolved on summary judgment.

## Conclusion

Milwaukee’s enforcement of a 2,500-foot spacing rule without granting a needed variance for a six-person disability group home violated the FHAA and ADA because the requested exception was reasonable and necessary to provide equal housing opportunity, and the City failed to show any concrete undue burden or fundamental change to its zoning system.


Oconomowoc Residential Programs, Inc. v. City of Milwaukee, 300 F.3d 775 (7th Cir. 2002)