Posted on 06/15/2014 4:47:48 PM PDT by TurboZamboni
Think of it as a lottery with a 30 percent chance of winning.
The prize? A city permit authorizing people to be among the lucky property owners on their block allowed to rent their house.
For 70 percent of their neighbors, well, that’s just too bad.
That’s how it works in Winona, a southeastern Minnesota college community that in 2006 instituted an across-the-board rental restrictions on property owners.
“It’s basic freedom, it’s your house, it’s your property. And here’s another case of the government coming in blindly saying you don’t have those rights anymore because we’re the Winona City Council,” said Ethan Dean, one of four property owners suing the city.
At least three more Minnesota cities have passed rental caps on homeowners — Mankato, Northfield and West St. Paul. Now, the Minnesota Supreme Court will take up the 3-year-old property rights case.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanexperiment.org ...
Simple. Everyone that doesn’t have a rental certificate should just board up the house and protest their taxes.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Nazis elected to positions of power within local governments behave like Nazis. I note that this is a college town, these people don’t want college students renting houses in their neighborhoods. College towns tend to reflect the Nazi attitudes of the staff and faculty and are among the worst offenders when it comes to restricting liberty and property rights.
I know Winona very well, and you’re right.
I’ll bet this isn’t the college that’s against it, but homeowners who don’t want every other house in the neighborhood to be a semi-frat house.
The homeowners are the college professors in many cases.
There is a concept of encroachment. And the idea that people would rent their houses may negatively affect the value of the adjacent properties.
I am not particularly agreeing or disagreeing with the policy, but merely toss that concept into the mix of the discussion.
As in most college towns, I would bet that most of the houses near the campus have most likely long been given over to rentals.
The idea that they would preserve a “neighborhood” is simply tyranny at this point. It would seem to make sense to just allow these rentals close to campus, and concentrate the damage to near campus rather than let it infect other neighborhoods. If the pool of available rentals is too small then it would behoove the city to expand that blast radius.
Give the neighbors notice of an application for a zoning change, from R1 to R2 and they will have had fair warning to leave while their property has not been adversely affected. Let the City Council approve or deny the application and they can face the voters for that decision as well.
As a board member of a condo complex in Colorado, I get asked by underwriters what the percentage of owner occupied units are.
I decline to answer. There are many shades of grey. Is the occupant related to the owner? If so legally only, or also by blood? Does the occupant pay rent? If so, is it market level rent? How can we verify the payments?
Until these questions are answered, there is no reliable way to make a determination.
In NC most condo developments have a cap on how many units may be rented at any one time. This is known to the buyer before they close.
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