Rehabilitation Support Services, Inc. is the largest not-for-profit corporation in New York State providing housing for people with mental disabilities.   It is proposing to establish mixed use housing in Colonie, New York, a suburb of Albany, to house senior citizens, lower middle class workers, and people with mental disabilities.

A previous project of the same size not housing people with mental disabilities received a zoning change for such housing.  The Town of Colonie, however, rescinded the zoning change once it learned that the proposed housing would be, in part, for people with disabilities.  Rehabilitation Support Services filed an action in the Federal Court for the Northern District of New York under the Federal Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act against the Town of Colonie on the rescission of the zoning change.  The Court denied Colonie’s motion for summary judgment, finding that Rehabilitation Support Services showed considerable evidence that Colonie’s change in the zoning code was based on the disability of the proposed residents and was thus possibly discriminatory.

Rehabilitation Support Services v. Town Of Colonie, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44909 (N.D.N.Y. 2018)