Meridian tiny home case sees ruling after two years

After two years, Chasidy Decker’s tiny home lawsuit against the city of Meridian has come to a close.

On Tuesday, Judge Jason Scott ruled against Decker and Robert Calacal’s lawsuit, which challenged Meridian’s ban on tiny homes on wheels.

Decker moved to Leisure Lane in Meridian in May 2022, sharing a lot with Calacal’s home after agreeing to pay rent to Calacal every month.

Decker said problems began the day after she moved in, when Code Enforcement Officer Anthony Negrete began an investigation and visited Calacal’s property and told Decker that Meridian City Code prohibited her from living in a mobile tiny home on Calacal’s property. He gave Decker 10 days to move her tiny home or stop living in it.

According to the Memorandum Decision and Order on Summary Judgment, the investigation was prompted by a neighbor, who phoned the Meridian Police Department to report the tiny home’s arrival and ask whether it was lawful to live there in a vehicle.

According to the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law document for Decker’s case, there were other tiny homes on Leisure Lane that were not a problem from the city’s perspective because no one lived in them.

“Inside and out, its construction, fixtures, and appliances are comparable to those of a traditional, stick-built home, except that the structure is built on a chassis and its utility connections are above-ground flexible hoses,” the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law court document said about Decker’s tiny home.

At the time, Decker looked into every RV park in the Treasure Valley and they all had a two- or three-year waiting list, as previously reported by the Idaho Press. According to attorney Bob Belden, Decker lived in her friend’s spare room for the first couple of months of the case, but since then, she’s been paying to stay temporarily in an apartment in the Treasure Valley.

Decker’s tiny home is still on Calacal’s property; she just can’t live in it, Belden said. It’s unclear where Decker will live now.

“We’re not giving up yet,” Belden said.

Decker and Calacal’s lawsuit against the city was filed in August 2022.

There were three significant claims to the Decker/Calacal case: that the city’s enforcement against Decker and Calacal was irrational; that the city’s enforcement was an equal protection violation; and that the acts of enforcement were in retaliation for an Idaho Statesman article that outlined the situation — specifically referencing an encounter Decker had with Negrete on Aug. 2, 2022.

That morning, she visited her mobile tiny home to pick up household items and walk her dog and encountered Negrete there, where he “angrily confronted her about the Statesman article, taking issue with the way she had described events.”

The court ruled against Decker and Calacal because they did not satisfy Meridian’s Unified Ownership Requirement, which states that if there is a secondary dwelling unit on a property, the owner of the primary residence must own it. The court also ruled that the plaintiffs did not establish that they were treated differently because of a distinction that fails the rational basis test and dismissed Decker and Calacal’s case on prejudice.

“I’m devastated that, after waiting two years, I won’t be able to move back into my tiny home on Robert’s property anytime soon,” Decker said in a news release. “This is terrible news for tiny-homeowners and others like me who need more affordable housing alternatives in Idaho.”

Decker and Calacal were represented by the Institute for Justice, a public service law firm, which is planning on seeking a review on the court’s ruling, according to the press release.

“The City’s requirement that the same person has to own both Chasidy’s tiny home and Robert’s house in order to get an SDU permit is irrational,” Belden said. “But we will seek review of this ruling to help protect the property rights of Chasidy and Robert and other Idahoans who wish to make productive use of their residential property to provide more housing.”