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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES DESIGNERS AND BUILDERS OF

WASHINGTON, D.C. The Justice Department today filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Western Tennessee, against the designers and builders of three local apartment complexes - Champion Hills at Windyke and Champion Hills at Stonebridge, which are located in Memphis, and The Wyndham Apartments, which are located in Arlington, Tennessee for failing to comply with the federal Fair Housing Act requirement that new multifamily housing be accessible to persons with disabilities.

The lawsuit alleges that Champion Hills at Windyke, Champion Hills at Stonebridge, and The Wyndham Apartments have many features that make them inaccessible to persons with disabilities. They include inadequate handicap parking spaces, walkways that are too steep for persons who use wheelchairs, obstacles that pose hazards to persons who are blind or have low vision, and apartment lay outs that do not allow persons in wheelchairs to travel into and through units.

The defendants named in the lawsuit include Makowsky Construction Company Inc., Archeon Inc., and Reaves Sweeney Marcom Inc., the contractor, architectural firm, and engineering firm for the two Champion Hills complexes. The Justice Department's complaint also includes Penn Investors, Inc., the successor to the original owner of Champion Hills at Windyke, and MRB-Stonebridge, L.P., which had ownership interests in both Champion Hills complexes at the time of their construction. J. Richard Grant and Milton Grant, John R. Gillentine and Henry Hart, the original owners and general contractors, architect, and engineer for The Wyndham Apartments, were also named as defendants.

"The Fair Housing Act has required newly constructed multifamily housing to be accessible for more than ten years, but apartment and condominium complexes are still being designed and built so persons with disabilities cannot live there. This lawsuit is yet another step in our efforts to alert people who design and construct mulitfamily housing in Tennessee and across the country that federal accessibility standards must be complied with, " said Ralph F. Boyd, Jr., Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights."

Under the Fair Housing Act, apartment and condominium complexes with four or more units that were built for occupancy after March 1991 must include accessible public and common use areas; accessible routes into and through dwellings; doors that are wide enough to accommodate persons who use wheelchairs; bathroom walls that have reinforcements for the installation of grab bars; electrical outlets, light switches and thermostats at accessible heights; and bathrooms and kitchens that have large enough clear floor space for people who use wheelchairs to move around and use them. In buildings without elevators, such as those at issue in this lawsuit, only ground floor units are required to be accessible. In elevator buildings all apartments and condominiums must be accessible.

Persons who believe they were denied housing or otherwise discriminated against at Champion Hills at Windyke, Champion Hills at Stonebridge, and The Wyndham Apartments because of the complexes' inaccessible features, should contact the Justice Department at 1-800-896-7743 or the Memphis Center for Independent Living at 901-726-6404.