The National Fair Housing Alliance and the North Texas Fair Housing Center settled a lawsuit against UDR Inc., a multifamily housing developer, for discrimination against people with disabilities.
A lawsuit filed in September 2012 alleged that for five years, UDR and several of its affiliates engaged in a continuous pattern of discrimination against
During an investigation of UDR apartments, violations that NFHA and NTFHC found included kitchens and bathrooms with insufficient maneuvering space for wheelchair users at sinks and toilets, doors with excessively high thresholds, inaccessible visitor parking for leasing offices, mailboxes mounted too high, closet doorways that were too narrow, common-use restrooms with roll-under sinks that had exposed hot water and drain pipes under the sink, common-use restrooms with urinals mounted too high for people with mobility impairments, and accessible parking spaces without the required access aisle that allows disabled people to safely leave or enter their vehicles.
As part of the settlement, UDR will renovate three apartment complexes in Dallas—the Savoye, the Belmont and the Riachi—whose designs will be compliant to the guidelines under the Fair Housing Act. Also, UDR agreed to build all new apartments in the same manner and educate all current and future employees of their obligations under the law and inform tenants of their rights.
An additional term of the settlement is that UDR has to pay $87,000 in compensation. UDR is a real estate investment trust that owns and operates about 160 multifamily apartment complexes across the country, with more than 47,000 units.
“There is no excuse for new housing developments in Dallas or anywhere else to exclude persons with disabilities,” said Frances Espinoza, executive director of North Texas Fair Housing Center, in a press release. “We are looking forward to seeing a much more welcoming environment for people with disabilities in UDR’s apartment complexes.”
