Court Opinion

ID: 9714427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:37:13.814468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:26.020154
License: Public Domain

WIGGINS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I agree Ames Municipal Code section 29.201(62) does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. However, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the ordinance does not violate the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.
The majority relies on Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1, 9, 94 S.Ct. 1536, 1541, 39 L.Ed.2d 797, 804 (1974), to validate Ames’s purpose behind legislating section 29.201(62). However, it is the exclusive prerogative of this court, not the United States Supreme Court, to determine the constitutionality of Iowa statutes challenged under the Iowa Constitution. Callender v. Skiles, 591 N.W.2d 182, 187 (Iowa 1999). “[T]his court’s independent application of the rational basis test might result in a dissimilar outcome from that reached by the Supreme Court in considering the federal constitutional claim.” Racing Ass’n of Cent. Iowa v. Fitzgerald, 675 N.W.2d 1, 6 (Iowa 2004). Even if the Iowa Constitution and the United States Constitution are similarly or identically phrased we can independently consider constitutional arguments and decline to follow United States Supreme Court precedent. Id. (citing William J. Brennan, Jr., State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv. L.Rev. 489, *264500 (1977)). “This result is particularly possible in view of ‘the ill-defined parameters of the equal protection clause.’ ” Id. (quoting Miller v. Boone County Hosp., 394 N.W.2d 776, 781 (Iowa 1986)).
In analyzing an equal protection challenge under the Iowa Constitution we must first determine whether the Ames city council had a valid reason to treat related persons differently from unrelated persons in its zoning ordinance. Id. at 7. In doing so, we must not only ask whether the ordinance serves a legitimate government purpose, but also whether the claimed state interest is realistically conceivable. Id. Second, we must decide whether the city’s claimed reason has a basis in fact. Id. at 8. Lastly, we must consider whether the relationship between the classification, i.e., the differences between related and unrelated persons, and the purpose of the classification is so weak that the classification must be viewed as arbitrary. Id.
Under the Iowa Constitution we employ an overinclusive-underinclusive dichotomy analysis to determine whether legislation survives rational basis scrutiny. Compare id. at 10 (finding the legislative purpose behind a taxation provision cannot withstand rational basis review because of the extreme degrees of overinclusion and un-derinclusion), and Bierkamp v. Rogers, 293 N.W.2d 577, 584 (Iowa 1980) (finding a classification based on extreme degrees of overinelusion and underinclusion cannot pass rational basis review), with Vance v. Bradley, 440 U.S. 93, 108, 99 S.Ct. 939, 948, 59 L.Ed.2d 171, 183 (1979) (demonstrating the United States Supreme Court’s tolerance for laws that are overinclusive and underinclusive when conducting a rational basis review). If we find “a classification involves extreme degrees of overinclusion and underinclusion in relation to any particular goal,” then that provision fails rational basis review. Bierkamp, 293 N.W.2d at 584; see also Racing Ass’n of Cent. Iowa, 675 N.W.2d at 10. For reasons stated below, I find Ames’s zoning ordinance contains extreme degrees of overinclusion and underinclusion. Accordingly, the ordinance violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.
As the majority states, Ames’s purpose in treating related persons differently from unrelated persons is to “ ‘promotfe] a sense of community, sanctity of the family, quiet and peaceful neighborhoods, low population, limited congestion of motor vehicles and controlled transiency.’ ” Although Ames has a legitimate purpose in promoting the quality and character of its neighborhoods, I cannot accept that distinguishing between related and unrelated persons in a zoning law is rationally related to the promotion of a sense of community, sanctity of the family, quiet and peaceful neighborhoods, low population, limited congestion of motor vehicles, and controlled transiency.
Ames contends these interests will be advanced if groups of more than three unrelated persons are not allowed to live in a home together. However, the record is devoid of any evidence or argument that a group of more than three related persons will portray different or desirable behavior or living patterns than a group of more than three unrelated persons.
I find the ordinance regulates where no regulation is needed and fails to regulate where regulation is needed. The ordinance is both overinclusive and underinclu-sive. Further, the degree to which this over- and under-inclusiveness is present is extreme because it is irrational to suppose the type of relationship persons residing in a home have to each other has any rational bearing on the character or behavior of those persons. See Charter Twp. of Delta v. Dinolfo, 419 Mich. 253, 351 N.W.2d 831, *265841-42 (1984) (holding with regard to a similar housing provision “[a] greater example of over- and under-inclusiveness we cannot imagine”). This irrationality and the extreme over- and under-inclusiveness of the ordinance is easily illustrated by examining family and societal dynamics in the twenty-first century.
Families today, especially ones with teenagers, are just as likely as a group of unrelated persons to have numerous vehicles parked outside their home. In fact, in a college community like Ames, students, the unrelated persons most targeted by the ordinance, are more likely to rely on alternative means of transportation — public transportation, foot, or bicycle — than a vehicle. “Manifestly, restricting occupancy of single-family housing based generally on the biological or legal relationships between its inhabitants bears no reasonable relationship to the goals of reducing parking and traffic problems, controlling population density and preventing noise and disturbance.” McMinn v. Town of Oyster Bay, 66 N.Y.2d 544, 498 N.Y.S.2d 128, 488 N.E.2d 1240, 1243 (1985) (citing Moore v. City of East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 499-500, 97 S.Ct. 1932, 1935-36, 52 L.Ed.2d 531, 537-38 (1977); City of Santa Barbara v. Adamson, 27 Cal.3d 123, 164 Cal.Rptr. 539, 610 P.2d 436, 441 (1980); State v. Baker, 81 N.J. 99, 405 A.2d 368, 373 (1979)).
Further, it is irrational to relate a peaceful neighborhood with a neighborhood populated solely by families, or three or less unrelated persons. As another court has articulated under a similar ordinance, “twenty male cousins could live together, motorcycles, noise, and all, while three unrelated clerics could not.” Charter Twp. of Delta, 351 N.W.2d at 841. Or, that an ordinance of this type would prohibit a group of four unrelated “ ‘widows, widowers, older spinsters or bachelors or even of judges’ from residing in a single unit within the municipality.” Baker, 405 A.2d at 371 (quoting Kirsch Holding Co. v. Borough of Manasquan, 59 N.J. 241, 281 A.2d 513, 517 (1971)).
This ordinance also has no rational relationship to population control. A family of any size can reside in a home in Ames, whereas only three unrelated persons can live together. The majority does not cite to any evidence that supports its conclusion that population “density will be lessened by the ordinance.” Instead, it seems to this dissenter that it is irrational and contradictory to find the ordinance, which allows one group to house an unlimited number of related persons, would in any way reduce the overall population density.
Further, it is irrational to suppose this ordinance promotes a quiet and peaceful neighborhood. This ordinance does not distinguish between a raucous family that plays loud music at their home, has large parties at their home, and houses more vehicles than persons living in their home, and a house of four single, quiet, homebodies whose only knowledge of wild parties and loud music comes from watching television. As another court summarizes, housing ordinances of this sort create an irrational discrepancy in treatment because a tenant-occupied house whose “residents happen to be the quiet, neat type who use bicycles as their means of transportation” are subject to the ordinance; “whereas the owner-occupied house is not subject to the ordinance, even though its residents happen to be of a loud, litter-prone, car-collecting sort.” Coll. Area Renters & Landlord Ass’n v. City of San Diego, 50 Cal.Rptr.2d 515, 521 (Ct.App.1996).
In today’s modern society families are more mobile, especially in a college community, where professors, visiting professors, graduate students, and adminis*266trators are frequently moving to new universities to continue or further their studies and careers. These university families come in and out of Ames, yet under this ordinance their transitory nature is not a factor. See City of Des Plaines v. Trottner, 34 Ill.2d 432, 216 N.E.2d 116, 119 (1966). The majority dismisses this fact and finds students or other unrelated persons are the only transitory or mobile residents in a university town.
Instead of promoting families, this ordinance disadvantages those most likely to live with roommates — the poor and the elderly. See Holy Name Hosp. v. Montroy, 153 N.J.Super. 181, 379 A.2d 299, 302 (1977). The ordinance distinguishes between acceptable and prohibited uses of property by reference to the type of relationship a person has with those they live with, not by the conduct of those that live in the residence.
Ames claims it is promoting a sense of community with this ordinance. But whose community is Ames promoting? Is Ames only interested in promoting traditional families or those who can afford to live in a home without roommates — the wealthy and the upper-middle class? It is irrational for a city to attempt to promote a sense of community by intruding into its citizens’ homes and differentiating, classifying, and eventually barring its citizens from the community solely based on the type of relationship a person has to the other persons residing in their home.
Although the majority may classify these examples of overinclusive and under-inclusive applications of the ordinance as extreme, they do so in the context of social norms as they existed thirty-three years ago when the Supreme Court decided Belle Terre. In that era the typical household consisted of a mother, a father, and children, with one breadwinner and one vehicle. In today’s society this is no longer the case. Today it is not unusual to see a group of unrelated single persons living together and sharing expenses. The simple fact is that in today’s modern society the overinclusive and underinclusive examples identified in this dissent and by other courts that have found similar ordinances unconstitutional are closer to the norms than to the extremes.
If Ames wants to regulate population it can do so by reference to floor space and facilities. Noise and conduct can be controlled with nuisance and criminal laws. Traffic and parking can be controlled by limiting the number of vehicles to all households or with off-street parking regulations. See Coll. Area Renters & Landlord Ass’n, 50 Cal.Rptr.2d at 521.
In sum, I find the ordinance does not reasonably and rationally further Ames’s stated legislative goal and is therefore unconstitutional under Iowa law.
HECHT and APPEL, JJ., join this dissent.