ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota cities have circled the wagons in a controversial property rights case that pits municipal authorities against homeowners who are challenging the constitutionality of Winona’s rental ban before the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Mankato, Rochester and St. Paul joined the League of Minnesota Cities in urging the state’s top court to uphold Winona’s law, which allows no more than 30 percent of homeowners per block to rent their property in the college community.
“Now and into the uncertain future, Minnesota cities need to be able to use all of the ‘tools’ within their authority, including the ability to limit the number of rental units, to fulfill their obligations to their citizens,” Mankato City Attorney Eileen Wells wrote in a friend-of-the-court filing.
Winona implemented the nation’s first comprehensive rental cap ordinance in 2006. The city responded to concerns over neighborhoods with single-family homes being converted to rental properties catering to college students, which can lead to complaints over parking, noisy parties and other issues.
Since property owners who already were renting houses were grandfathered in under the rule, the number of property owners able to legally rent their houses varies widely from block to block.
After being denied rental licenses granted many of their neighbors, three property owners sued Winona in 2011 for denying their fundamental property rights.
Mankato, St. Paul and West St. Paul also have rental prohibitions on the books. But the most emphatic defense on behalf of local governments came from Rochester, which does not. Rochester’s brief makes the case that local governments need to keep rental bans as an option in their tool box.
“Winona should be encouraged and applauded for its experimentation with innovative and novel concepts designed to find solutions for municipal issues,” wrote Rochester City Attorney Terry Adkins.
Anthony Sanders, an Institute for Justice attorney on the case, takes issue with the tool box concept.
“The whole point of a Constitution is you take some tools out of the tool box that the government can’t use,” he said. “It shows that cities just want to maximize the power they have, regardless of whether or not they should have that power.”