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Planning Commission - October 18, 2023 Page 4 improving neighborhood stability, and a series of other benefits that lead to stronger citizenship and community strength. As a result, some communities have adopted regulations that limit the number of rental units in the community. In many of these examples, the regulations limit the number of rental units by geographic area. The idea behind these limitations is to avoid an over-concentration of rental housing in a particular area, with the goal being to ensure that ownership remains the dominant form of occupancy in any particular neighborhood. This approach to rental housing has been subject to legal challenges in a number of Minnesota communities. Most significantly, the City of Winona adopted an ordinance limiting the number of single family rental units that could occupy any block to a maximum of 30%. The City noted that the overconcentration of rental units had been observed to have a negative impact on housing maintenance, and other observable conditions in areas dominated by rental occupancy. Winona withstood a legal challenge, despite some sympathetic challengers. The case went to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which ruled that because the City could identify specific benefits to protecting public health, safety, and welfare, the regulation was justifiable. Because this is the general standard of review for land use cases, the Court’s determination is likely to be applicable to other similar regulations. In the past, the generally applicable rule in land use was that a city could not discriminate between rental- and owner-occupied housing. The essential element was the land use and its density, not the identity (or “tenancy”) of the residents. The Winona cases have turned this over in some ways. Thus, if St. Anthony wished to adopt limiting regulations as to the number of single family rentals, there is a path to creating those regulations. Because “owner-occupied” housing can take many forms, there are not likely to be other ways to distinguish between occupants. Corporate ownership occurs occasionally to allow owner-occupants to include their housing in estate planning options. This is same as trust-ownership or family-member ownership (both of which can qualify as “homestead” properties under Minnesota’s real estate tax policy. Ordinance Proposal No. 1: Limit the total number of single family rental licenses by geographic area. For this proposal, the attached Ordinance language would limit single family detached rental licenses to: A.Create a definition of “Block”: A block is a tract of land bounded on all sides by streets or by a combination of streets, public parks, railroad rights-of-way, pierhead lines or airport boundaries.