City Code, ExplainedBetaPardon our dust while we build this out — expect some changes along the way.

This chapter, the Pottsville Open Housing Ordinance, prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, financing, and advertising of commercial housing.

Who this affects

It affects anyone involved in selling, leasing, or financing housing covered by the ordinance — including owners, landlords, real estate brokers/agents, and lenders — as well as prospective buyers, renters, and occupants who are protected from discrimination.

Key rules

• Unlawful to refuse to sell, lease, finance, or otherwise deny or withhold commercial housing based on race, color, religious creed, ancestry, sex, or national origin, or to deny housing to a person using a guide dog because of blindness.
• Unlawful to refuse to lend money for acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, repair, or maintenance of commercial housing based on those same protected characteristics.
• Unlawful to discriminate in the terms or conditions of selling or leasing commercial housing, or in furnishing facilities, services, or privileges connected to ownership, occupancy, or use, based on those protected characteristics or use of a guide dog because of blindness.
• Unlawful to discriminate in the terms or conditions of a loan for acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, repair, or maintenance of commercial housing based on those protected characteristics.
• Unlawful to print, publish, or circulate any statement or advertisement about the sale, lease, or acquisition of commercial housing (or related loans) that indicates a preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination based on those protected characteristics, or based on use of a guide dog because of blindness.
• The ordinance does not apply to a personal residence — housing with no more than two individuals, groups, or families living independently — offered for rent by its owner or lessee.

Penalties

A fine not exceeding six hundred dollars ($600), plus costs of prosecution, and, in default of payment of the fine or costs, imprisonment for a term not to exceed ninety (90) days.

Notable and archaic details

• Adopted in 1980, this ordinance predates many later federal and state fair housing protections and uses the term "national origin" rather than more modern protected-class language.
• It specifically calls out denying housing or advertising against someone "due to use of a guide dog because of the blindness of the user" as a distinct discriminatory practice.