The consitutional text in question here is 14A, which has two main prongs: equal protection (all statutes have to meet a minimal rational basis test) and due process (either substantive or procedural). It would be nice if the court had specified which it had in mind when it found the clause of the statute regarding public opinion to be unconstitutional. But they don't.
The court calls the people a mob, unreflective, unreasoning, self-interested, biased, and ingorant. You don't often see that. It's a little undemocratic, really, for the court to go on this way.
The city would win on a constitutional basis, but the statutory basis (fair housing) might come out differently. So the USSC sends it down for further findings. So the USSC knows full well that the courts below will get the right result.
This remains a tricky issue, though. The court will sometimes take a case, and then refuse to hear it on the basis of standing, in order to tell the bar that they are thinking about a subject. We will hear this issue sometime soon, in other words, and we'd like some law review articles written.
States are allowed to give more protection to minorities (etc.) than the federal constitution requires, but not less.
So, you don't have to do a great deal, says the court, but you must at the very least zone for some high-density housing.
WI has a subtler statute. § 289.33 : the DNR has the power to get all the communities involved together to negotiate. If you skip the meeting, you get the waste site.
The legislature did ultimately respond. They hacked the system, however: instead of having the housing themselves, they bought shares of low-income housing from communities that had more than their share. They create a market for low-income housing; sort of like pollution credits. It helps to create financial equalization, but not actual integration. Clever legislators.
Courts can't impose their wills 100%: they are an emperor without an army. They can do stuff, though: threaten contempt, require that the cisty become eligible for federal aid (which would mean the housing would get built).
Arguments for the plaintiff (NAACP):
What is NY supposed to do about this? They say they'll keep it residential, but put new buildings up. This means old buildings must come down. And so the residents have to move. These buildings are significantly over- occupied. We become prisoners of the rigidity of our own housing code: new buildings don't get built because they can't accomodate the current residence. So the city plans to gentrify.
Notice that the developer is allowed to develop if he puts in a swimming pool for general use (i.e., deed it over to the YMCA). That's a pretty blatant taking, and nobody says anything. Also, the developer must put $500K into some general fund (i.e., for low income housing). That is called a "welcome stranger" tax, and it too is a takings issue. Again, the court doesn't pause here.
Of course, this is a lower court decision, and it gets reversed on appeal. :)
Still, it was pretty bold of the court simply to announce that Mount Laurel is a good idea for the whole state.
So, does NY have its "fair share" of poverty? Well, yes. It's not Mount Laurel, after all. NY's fear is that it's *losing* the wealth, just like Camden in Mount Laurel
The court's response is sort of like Smith's Estate: we're not going to finagle that boundary (there, the definition of "gift"). But, for reasons unknown, we'll change the meaning of "rational basis" to "legitimate basis." Those are quite different, but the opinion kaleidescopes between them.
The neighbors don't get to specify what the landowner does with their property-- their objections are merely irrational. The court's definition of "irrational" seems to be "selfish." But those are not the same.
Here, the arrival of the group home will drive property values down, and impose a bunch of neighbors who are a little hard to talk to (or something). To declare these interests irrational is like Smith's Estate saying that the thing is a trust.
The lawyers kind of screw up: their point about the retarded kids getting teased is undermined by the fact that retarded children already attend the neighborhood school; the 500-year-flood plain idea is really reaching, especially since other group homes are already there-- just not ones for the retarded.
So, as lawyers, we need not to annoy the court.
The court refuses to constitutionalize this protection, but they say it can be protected in statute. And indeed, disabilities are now covered by fair housing (including protection against hostile zoning).
Again, the court is a little irritated: the city shows no statistical data (i.e., like in Marina Point about kids being destructive). The city's arguments are again over-reaching: traffic safety, etc.
You can't force people away on such paternalistic grounds.
For the plaintiffs:
Church is subtle: if federalism bows to other interests, it is irrelevant. Note that WI statute has the same space restriction. So state and local government have the same idea in mind, but congress has some other figure in mind (reasonable accomodation). And so the federal law trumps local and state rules (supremacy).
Prejudice doesn't travel well, in other words, and the farther you are away from the source of the discrimination, the better you'll be able to offer a reasonable perspective on the matter. So the federal government is a better judge of this.
Of course, there are a lot of rules that rub up against religious issues. In Yoder for example, the issue was compulsory schooling. The USSC said that in order to interfere with religious observance, the state's interest is subject to strict scrutiny. The Smith case concerned whether drug counselors could be fired for using peyote in compliance with their religion. Here, the USSC said that the state's interest simply had to be rational, and the state could expect compliance with laws from everyone.
So the legislature, under lobbyist pressure, Congress enacts RFRA, to say that Yoder principles are better than Smith ones. It was unanimous in both the senate and the house, incidentally. The court found RFRA unconstitutional in Boerne (dispute about preservation of the historic mission-style facade of a Catholic church). Swiftly thereafter, the legislature enacts RLUIPA, saying it only applies to zoning and religion-in-prison issues, requiring a compelling state interest.
Most of the resultant cases, like Elsinore concerned zoning.
This is still somewhat of an issue-- the court backs down over 1A and religion in some prison issues. It's probably going to remain unsettled for a few years. Anyway, religious zoning is denigrated.
Eminient domain comes out of 5A (takings clause). "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This does not mean you can take it for private use without compensation, by the way. :) It means it can be taken only for public use, and only with just compensation. But the bottom line is that it may be forcibly be taken. There are three big issues:
The US owns land equivalent roughly to the US east of the Mississippi. Or roughly equivalent to western europe. That's a lot of ownership, and it can cause problems. WI is only 6% federally owned. NV is something like 92%. Cases attempting to change this, predictably, tend to fail.
Eminent domain turns private property into public property. There is no reverse path other than the political process, so in practical terms, it is a one-way street. Used to be that US policy was to give land away to homesteaders, trying to get property into private hands. Now it is taking land: eminent domain accounts for about 75M acres.
So HI wanted to have renters apply to the state-- the state would condemn the property, take possession of it, and then sell it to the renter. That's not public use, obviously. The USSC said that just this once, it would be OK. This public purpose serves the public use.