ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996                TAG: 9608120075
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press

APARTMENT COMPLEX FACES SUIT MOTHER ALLEGES HOUSING BIAS

A Chesterfield County apartment complex has been sued by a woman who alleges that it discriminates against families with young children.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on Friday by Housing Opportunities Made Equal, a local fair housing advocacy group, and Sandra Johnson, who has two young daughters.

The lawsuit alleges that Patrician Village Apartments' policy of two people per apartment is meant to limit the complex's population to mostly childless adults. That effectively bars families with minor children and violates the Fair Housing Act, the lawsuit alleges.

James W. Daniels Jr., an official of the management company operating Patrician Village, had not seen the lawsuit and declined to comment.

Constance Chamberlin, executive director of HOME, said several complaints against Patrician Village's occupancy limits have been filed with the state's fair housing office, but none has been resolved.

Daniels said the occupancy limit was investigated by someone from state government two or three years ago, but he never heard anything more.

Those complaints should have put Patrician Village on notice that what it was doing was illegal, Chamberlin said. She said most other apartments stopped the practice after 1991, when federal Fair Housing Act guidelines said two people per bedroom was a reasonable occupancy standard.

According to the lawsuit, Johnson tried twice in 1995 to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Patrician Village Apartments. The $295 rent was affordable and the complex was near her older daughter's school.

Both times, the rental agent told her she did not qualify because she had two children.

Chamberlin said all the units in Patrician Village have two bedrooms and are reasonably priced.

``It's good, affordable housing,'' she said, but the policy keeps out the families that most need such housing.

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