(Photo by IntangibleArts)

The D.C. Attorney General’s office has filed a response to a lawsuit claiming the city’s housing policies have fueled gentrification and discriminated against African Americans and families in D.C.

The lawsuit, filed back in April, alleges that city policies like the Adrian Fenty administration’s Creative Action Agenda and Vincent Gray’s Creative Economy Strategy have molded the city to attract young, “creative” millennial renters at the expense of D.C.’s longest-standing residents. It claims both intentional discrimination by the city and “disparate impact”—the idea that ostensibly neutral city policies have negative outcomes for certain groups even without the intent to discriminate. The suit is seeking more than $1 billion in damages. (Read a more detailed explainer of the lawsuit here.)

The city filed its motion to dismiss the lawsuit earlier this week. Among its arguments, the city claims that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue and that its discrimination claims do not “plausibly allege that the District implemented its development policies with the intent to discriminate.”

The motion says the plaintiffs “offer no factual support for their assertion that the Districts development policies disproportionately affect the access to housing for residents who are African-American, families, or religious.” It points to what the city says are positive effects of its development policies for African Americans in the city. The high-density developments in Navy Yard, for example, resulted in a 182 percent increase in the African American population in the area, according to the motion. The city also points to Census numbers that say the raw numbers of African Americans living in the city have actually increased between 2010 and 2016. Those numbers include all African Americans in the city, not specifically long-standing residents.

Aristotle Theresa, the lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of several D.C. residents and CARE, a community group, told DCist he has no comment on the city’s motion at this time.

Anthony Cook, a Georgetown Law professor, previously told DCist that intentional discrimination was going to be difficult to prove in court. Cook said that the claim about disparate impact would likely have a better chance in court because “it’s not just about whether the city intends to discriminate,” but whether the outcomes of its policies are skewed in a way that disadvantages a protected group.

Now, the parties have to wait for the city’s motion to be approved or denied.

Memorandum of Points and Authorities In Support of the District of Columbia Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss t… by Natalie Delgadillo on Scribd