Legallity of a City Ordiance
 

Salt lake city has the following city ordiance pertaining to people living together.


What is the legality of such an ordiance? The problem is Salt Lake City has a ton of really big homes because of the morman families. There are homes with 5+ bedrooms that people own and rent out. Is such an ordiance legal and under what grounds could it be fought?

I'm not sure what the purpose of such an ordinance once was, but this seems like the type of ordinance that was once passed long ago that is no longer enforced.

For instance, it is illegal in the state of Wisconsin to eat a slice of apple pie unless there is cheese on top...

Oh, those wacky mormons.

I wonder if you can redefine a house to no longer be a single housing unit.

Yes, there are guidelines for this, called aprtment housing. However, there are another set of restrictions and rules.

It is quite legal to have pretty much any ordinance a city votes on. You always can challenge these things, but it could get quite expensive to do so. It kind of makes sense to limit the numbr of unrelated adults or you'd get a whole bunch of people sharing limited space.

They do this in college towns to keep students out of family neighborhoods.

it really seems like that is one of those ordinances that wouldnt hold up, but if it would be worth fighting the fight or not is the question.

I’m sure if it was ever tested it would be unconstitutional. But some one has to challenge it

A friend of mine just had thier house inspected for this. i guess some neighbors reported them. Pretty lame if you ask me.

yup.... here in Lubbock, Tx we have a very similar law

apparently way back when the law was made it was intended to prevent brothels or some such

but now they just use it to kick college students out of some neighberhoods.

I doubt it's unconstitutional--if so, a lot of hotels are in hot water for charging by the number of room occupants.

What IS illegal is specifying "no children," or "no more than four occupants" or the like, which is an attempt to limit the number of children in a unit. Except in senior citizens' complexes, which seem to occupy their own privileged category.

More likely, the owner doesn't want to be on the hook for the additional utilities, additional wear and tear, and complaints from the neighbors.

A law dictating where someone can live is unconstitutional (I think). However if a private citizen, renting out a hotel or a house wants to regulate who or how many can live in a place is perfectly fine.

Unless they discriminate based on race, religion, etc.

All cities dictate where people can and can't live. It's called zoning. This is just a normal zoning regulation. Cities can pass pretty much any zoning regulations they want as long as they don't discriminate against protected classes like gender, age, race etc.

Here's a story about a very simmilar case.

Story from missouri.