Just Deeds Project
On April 10, 2023, the City of Arden Hills joined the Just Deeds Project to condemn the use of discriminatory covenants and discharge any such covenants on city-owned property. With the help of Just Deeds, Arden Hills homeowners can also disavow and renounce any restrictive covenants on their property records.
To determine if your address is listed as a restrictive covenant, check the interactive map at Mapping Prejudice.
HISTORY OF COVENANTS
Discriminatory covenants were created in the early 1900s to prevent property from being sold, leased, or occupied based on race, religion, or ethnicity.
As properties were subdivided for housing development, racial covenants were placed on the new parcels to segregate communities and restrict home ownership along racial and ethnic lines. The popularity of these covenants is a function of the government's historical role. The federal government required them to secure FHA mortgage financing. In 1948, the US Supreme Court ruled that courts were prohibited from enforcing them. Minnesota prohibited new covenants in 1953, but existing ones were still legal until 1962.
MAPPING PREJUDICE
Mapping Prejudice was created in 2016 to identify and map racial covenants. Their Hennepin County map was the first-ever visualization of discriminatory covenants. In 2020, they started working on Ramsey County and released the first round of results in early 2023. The city of Arden Hills has nearly 200 properties with discriminatory covenants. The majority of these covenants are around Lake Johanna.
REMOVING COVENANTS
See if your property has a covenant. On the map, click on the search icon (magnifying glass) and type in your full address. It will tell you if your property has a covenant or not. Please note that Mapping Prejudice is continuously searching deeds.
If your property does have a covenant or you want to find out if it does, complete the Just Deeds application. After you submit the application, Ramsey County will contact you to begin discharging the covenant.