The Laramie City Council passed an ordinance in January 2022 that requires landlords register their rental housing units in Laramie, sets minimum habitability standards for those units, and establishes a process to file complaints has been partially struck down by an Albany County District Court Judge for containing “unconstitutionally vague” language regarding the enforcement of the regulations.
“The purpose of the City Rental Housing Code is to provide minimum habitability criteria to safeguard health, property and public wellbeing of the owners, occupants and users of rental housing and is intended to supplement rather than conflict with the habitability standards in Wyoming State statutes,” the ordinance states.
The City Council passed the ordinance with the aim of protecting renters in Laramie, of which students comprise a large portion.
ASUW student government found in a survey that, of the 1,300 UW students who live off-campus in Laramie who responded, 577 of them rented their place of residence. 133 of those students, or 23.05%, voiced complaints or concerns about their current or past landlord or their housing conditions.
A group of landlords mobilized to sue the city and prevent enforcement of the measure, claiming it violated the Wyoming Constitution, with property management company Bell Leasing LLC filing the case. The case was assigned to Albany County District Court Judge Tori Kricken, who ruled on the measure August 1.
“The Court finds that the plain language of the Ordinance as written is unconstitutionally vague. The Ordinance fails to clarify: whether any hearing before the municipal court would be civil or criminal in nature: what rules, trial procedure, and appellate procedure apply: and whether a failure to comply with the city manager’s notice and order is, itself, a per se violation,” Kricken wrote in her opinion.
In brief, the court found that the punishment for violating the terms of the ordinance, as well as what actually constitutes a violation thereof, is too vague, and therefore disrupts landlords’ right to due process.
However, in a win for rental regulation advocates, Kricken did rule that the city has the right to create such regulations under the Residential Rental Housing Act, formally known as Wyoming State Statutes 1-21-1201 to -1211.
“The Act does not permit something explicitly prohibited by the Ordinance, nor the reverse. Nothing in the Act explicitly states the Legislature’s intent that the Act offer the exclusive remedy to landlord-tenant claims, and the Wyoming Supreme Court’s holding in Merrill (v. Jansma) indicates the opposite. Similarly, nothing in the Ordinance would preclude a tenant from exercising his/her rights under the Act rather than under the Ordinance,” Kricken wrote.
The City of Laramie can create rental regulations, but the specifics surrounding enforcement of the ordinance must be clarified before January 1, 2023, the date it is currently scheduled to take effect. The regulation was not struck down in full, and registration for landlords and their properties remains open.
I feel these new regulation aka ordinances attack our freedom based on the constitution.