## Facts

- African-American Baltimore public-housing residents brought a certified class action against HUD, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City (HABC), and city officials alleging de jure segregation and confinement of Black families to racially concentrated, impoverished neighborhoods.
- The parties entered a partial consent decree that included Section XII, restricting new public-housing construction in areas with high concentrations of minority residents and poverty to prevent further racial concentration.
- Hollander Ridge, an HABC public-housing development, was located in a minority-concentrated area and had serious physical problems requiring extensive, costly repairs that were known to HABC before the decree.
- After entry of the decree, HABC proposed redeveloping Hollander Ridge by demolishing or reconfiguring it and constructing new public-housing units as part of a “senior village” or similar project at or near the same site.
- The proposed redevelopment conflicted with Section XII’s siting restrictions because it contemplated new public-housing construction in a racially concentrated area.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court correctly applied Rule 60(b) and the standard for modifying institutional-reform consent decrees when it modified Section XII to permit new public housing at Hollander Ridge.
2. Whether known or foreseeable rehabilitation costs and related conditions constituted a significant change in factual conditions or law sufficient to justify weakening a core desegregation provision.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s order modifying the consent decree.
- The court held the defendants failed to show a significant change in factual conditions or law warranting relief from Section XII.
- The court concluded the asserted economic and feasibility concerns about rehabilitating Hollander Ridge were known or foreseeable when the decree was negotiated.
- The court reinstated Section XII in its original form, barring the proposed new public-housing construction at Hollander Ridge.

## Legal Principles

- A party seeking to modify an institutional-reform consent decree under Rule 60(b) must show a significant change in factual conditions or law making continued enforcement substantially more onerous, unworkable due to unforeseen obstacles, or harmful to the public interest.
- If a qualifying change is shown, any modification must be suitably tailored to the change and may not exceed what is necessary to address it.
- Conditions known or reasonably foreseeable at the time of the decree generally do not satisfy the “significant change” requirement.
- Courts scrutinize requested modifications more closely when the change would impair provisions central to a decree’s remedial purpose, including desegregation and anti-concentration requirements in public housing.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit held that foreseeable redevelopment and cost concerns at a minority-concentrated public-housing site did not justify weakening a consent decree’s core anti-concentration provision, and it reversed the district court’s modification to preserve the decree’s desegregation remedy.


Thompson v. U.S. Dep’t of Hous. & Urb. Dev., 220 F.3d 241 (4th Cir. 2000)