Arlington County Board v. Richards

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1977 United States Supreme Court case

Arlington County Board v. Richards, 434 U.S. 5 (1977), is a United States Supreme Court decision on the application of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution to municipal parking restrictions . In a unanimous _per curiam _ opinion, the Court held that a residential zoned parking system requiring permits for daytime parking in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood of Arlington County, Virginia , with those permits limited to residents, their guests and those who came to their homes for business purposes had a rational basis and was thus constitutional. Its decision overturned the Virginia Supreme Court .

The ordinance upheld the first such program in a major U.S. metropolitan area, which had been adopted by the county three years earlier in response to national and local concerns. The former was an effort by urban planners and government agencies to reduce automobile use, and conversely encourage the use of public transit and carpooling to address traffic congestion and air pollution concerns. Locally, Aurora Highlands residents were complaining about increasing spillover parking on their streets by workers commuting to nearby Crystal City from elsewhere in the Washington metropolitan area .

Suit was brought by several plaintiffs. Most were drivers who routinely parked in Aurora Highlands; the lead plaintiff, Rudolph Richards, lived a block outside of the area designated by the ordinance. While he was able to walk to work, he argued that it was unconstitutional since it allowed residents of the designated area to park in front of his house while he could not park in front of theirs. The trial court and the Virginia Supreme Court agreed, but the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided the case purely based on the parties' briefs without granting _certiorari _, found the law a permissible way of carrying out the stated objectives of preserving the neighborhood character and residents' quality of life and that legal distinctions between residents and nonresidents of a particular area are not necessarily the invidious discrimination it had held to be forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The decision resolved a difference of opinion among state high courts, as earlier in the year the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had held a similar scheme in that state to be constitutional, mildly criticizing its Virginia counterpart in the process. After the decision, local governments felt more freedom to impose locally targeted parking and traffic rules. The Court has not revisited Richards since then, although it and other courts have relied on its holding that distinctions on the basis of residency, not just in parking but in taxation policy and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic , do not by themselves offend the Constitution. Legal commentary has accepted this conclusion, but there has been concern in the planning community that it has enabled, through qualifications on the definition of residency, the entrenchment of residential racial segregation in some areas.

Background

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Since returning to Virginia as one of the country's smallest counties in the mid-19th century after almost 50 years as part of the District of Columbia , Arlington had largely remained quiet, minimally developed and rural. Suburban development began in southern Arlington County in the 1890s with Addison Heights, the first of three subdivisions platted that would later be combined and resubdivided to become the neighborhood now the 128-acre (52 ha) Aurora Highlands Historic District , listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The properties were marketed as easily accessible to downtown Washington via bus and trolley.

Houses in Aurora Highlands, 2013

The area developed slowly over the early 20th century, primarily as a residential neighborhood of modest houses with narrow streets. During World War II , the large office building that became known as The Pentagon for its shape was built to the north of Aurora Highlands to house the main offices of the Department of Defense (DoD). After the war the many civilian and military jobs relocated there, along with the return of many veterans, drove new housing construction, and Aurora Highlands was one of the more popular sites for development, with many small brick Cape Cods going up on small lots resulting from multiple resubdivisions. Few of those houses had driveways, and residents parked in the streets.

By 1960 Arlington's population had increased sevenfold in the preceding 30 years. Three years later, the industrial and auto-related businesses in the area across U.S. Route 1 to the east of Aurora Highlands began being redeveloped into high-rise condominiums and office buildings, the beginnings of today's Crystal City . As soon as it was built, office space was often leased by defense contractors, taking advantage of the proximity of the Pentagon, and DoD itself to handle satellite and spillover functions. Late in the decade the federal government moved the U.S. Patent Office and the Institute for Defense Analysis to Crystal City.

Underlying dispute

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Crystal City in the late 20th century, with Aurora Highlands at left

At that time the many workers who came to Crystal City from elsewhere in the D.C. metropolitan area commuted by automobile. While Arlington's zoning code required developers to provide adequate off-street parking for the intended use of their buildings, most such parking in Crystal City charged fees for nonresidents. Commuters looking to save money thus went looking for free parking within walking distance, and found it in abundance on the nearby streets of Aurora Highlands.

This made the streets in the Highlands crowded and difficult to navigate during the day, as well as increasing noise and traffic

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