AN ACT amending the charter of the city of durham to allow fair housing organizations to file complaints with the Durham human relations commission.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  Section 121 of the Charter of the City of Durham, being Chapter 671 of the 1975 Session Laws, as amended by Chapter 373 of the 1983 Session Laws, Chapter 715 of the 1985 Session Laws, Chapter 379 of the 1991 Session Laws, and Chapter 658 of the 1993 Session Laws, reads as rewritten:
"Sec. 121. Equal Housing. (a) The City Council may adopt ordinances prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, familial status, or handicap in real estate transactions. Such ordinances may regulate or prohibit any act, practice, activity or procedure related, directly or indirectly to the sale or rental of public or private housing, which affects or may tend to affect the availability or desirability of housing on an equal basis to all persons; may provide that violations constitute a misdemeanor, and shall be punishable under G.S. 14‑4; may subject the offender to civil penalties; and may provide that the City may enforce the ordinances by application to the General Court of Justice, Superior Court Division, for appropriate legal and equitable remedies, including but not limited to, mandatory and prohibitory injunctions and orders of abatement, attorney's fees and punitive damages, and the court shall have jurisdiction to grant such remedies.
(b)	A fair housing enforcement organization, as defined in regulations adopted under 42 U.S.C. § 3602 (1968), may file a complaint with a committee established or designated by the City Council under Section 123 of this charter on behalf of a person who claims to have been injured by or reasonably believes he or she will be irrevocably injured by an unlawful discriminatory housing practice."
SECTION 2.  This act is effective when it becomes law.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 19th day of July, 2006.

	s/	 Beverly E. Perdue
	 President of the Senate

	s/	 James B. Black
	 Speaker of the House of Representatives