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Residents of Brookland Manor are suing the massive complex’s owner over a plan that involves eight blocks of redevelopment near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro.The tenants, along with ONE DC, argue in a lawsuit that one of the District’s largest planned community projects discriminates against large families.

If the name Brookland Manor sounds familiar, you may remember it from a disquieting Washington Post investigation that shows the owner, Mid-City Financial Corp., was pursuing evictions over as little as $25 in unpaid rent. Residents speculated that an increase in eviction notices over rent or lease violations was the result of “one in an arsenal of quiet but aggressive pressure tactics landlords use to clear buildings before redevelopment.” In a letter to the editor, the chairman of the company, Gene Ford Jr., called it a “distorted view of our property.”

An overhaul of the 20-acre site just south of Brookland—which has already been scaled back due to density concerns—would replace the 19 garden apartment buildings (currently totaling 535 apartments) with 1,760 residential units and 181,000 square feet of retail, according to the Washington Business Journal. The plans call for keeping 373 subsidized units—the same that there is now. But according to the suit, that wouldn’t include any four- or five-bedrooms and a limited number of three-bedrooms. Large families would likely find it difficult to return to the redevelopment or find comparable affordable units in the neighborhood.

“Whereas Brookland Manor currently has 209 apartments of three bedrooms or more, the redeveloped property would have zero four- or five-bedroom apartments and only 64 three-bedroom apartments,” the suit reads. “If forcibly displaced from the property and offered no replacement housing of their unit type in the redevelopment, numerous families at Brookland Manor will lose access to long-standing support structures, including access to jobs, assistive or social service-related programs, and local schools. The harm to these families is difficult to quantify.”

According to Catherine Cone, an attorney with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee’s Fair Housing Project, about 150 families who currently reside in three-, four-, and five-bedroom apartments would be affected. “We think its important as a city to ensure that families are part of communities, whether its existing communities or new communities,” she said. “Too often, families are pushed out.”

One of the plaintiffs, Adriann Borum, says that losing her four-bedroom apartment would change the character of their community and make it impossible for large families to stay. “They say it takes a village to raise a child. I was raised at Brookland Manor, and have raised 5 children here,” she said in a statement. Brookland Manor is our village, and our village is being torn apart.”

This post has been updated with additional comment from Catherine Cone.