PROVIDENCE – A Superior Court judge has struck down Narragansett’s enforcement of an ordinance limiting the number of unrelated people living together to four as ambiguous and overly vague in the latest chapter in the town’s decades’ long battle to control college rentals.
Judge Jeffrey Lanphear this week declared the ordinance unconstitutional , resulting in arbitrary enforcement against landlords, including John M. and Sandra L. Rainaldi, who sued the town last year.
“The use of 'unrelated' and 'family’ within the Four Unrelated Ordinance are ambiguous. This results in confusion for ordinary landlords and renters in Narragansett regarding what household formulations are prohibited,” Lanphear wrote. “Thus, the Four Unrelated Ordinance resulted in arbitrary enforcement against Appellants.”
Lanphear faulted the town for failing to define the word “unrelated,” thus leaving the town’s building official to determine what it means in each given scenario.
The Rainaldis, who own 45 Sylvan Road, were cited by the town in 2023 after an inspector found that six unrelated people were living in the house. The Zoning Board of Review upheld the violations, prompting the Rainaldis to launch their challenge.
“Specifically, by failing to define 'unrelated’ and 'family,’ Narragansett delegated their duties to their Building and Zoning Official to define those terms. This improperly delegates policy matters to these town officials, precisely what the vagueness doctrine seeks to avoid,” the ruling states.
The vagueness doctrine is a principle requiring that laws be clear enough to put people on notice of what rules they need to follow.
Landlords applaud judge's ruling
Landlords hailed Lanphear’s ruling Friday as striking down “government overreach in the strictest sense.”
“We applaud the judge's ruling that the Narragansett no more than four unrelated person ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. It is a win for owner property rights as the town has continually attacked property owner rights with the housing limiting ordinances that they have passed over the last few years,” George Nonis, spokesman for the landlords’ group Narragansett 2100 , said in a statement.
"Obviously, we're happy with the decision," Joelle Rocha, who represented the landlords, said Friday.
It's unfortunate, she said, that it took so long − not on the part of the judge − to come to a place where the court recognized what the landlords had been saying all along: No one knew what it meant.
Ruling encompasses various issues
Narragansett 2100, a nonprofit that encompasses some 400 landlords, has been fighting the town’s ordinances aiming to limit the number of University of Rhode Island students living in the seaside community since 2016.
The group relied, in part, on a 2017 ruling by Municipal Court Judge John DeCubellis Jr . that determined that an identical law violated four landlords’ due process and equal protection rights after they were issued violations.
But Lanphear found those arguments misplaced as the municipal court’s jurisdiction is limited to ordinance violations and not determining the constitutionality of an ordinance.
The judge also found that the town could have passed the ordinance limiting the number of unrelated people living in rental housing to protect the character of its neighborhoods and, thus, there is an appropriate rational basis to enact it under the Constitution.
How will the town proceed?
It remains unclear whether the town will appeal the ruling or simply adjust the wording to include specific language defining “unrelated” and “family,” as Judge Lanphear appears to indicate.
Town Manager James R. Tierney didn’t return a phone call Friday.
Town Council President Ewa Dzwierzynski also did not respond to an email inquiry.
The ruling comes following the arrests of 22 URI students , including two accused of assaulting police officers, on various charges over a one-week span from Sept. 2 to 8.
Two men facing the most serious charges, ages 20 and 21, are accused of assaulting officers responding to an "unruly gathering" in the Bonnet Shores neighborhood, Narragansett Police Chief Sean Corrigan said.
Other students face charges of underage possession of alcohol; public consumption of alcohol; urinating in public; driving under the influence; misrepresentation of age; and violating the state's social host law , among others.
Decades' long struggle for housing control
The town’s efforts to rein in rental housing date back to 1986, when the town passed its first ordinance barring more than three unrelated people from living in a house.
The ordinance was challenged in Superior Court and a judge concluded that the ordinance violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Rhode Island Constitution.
In 2016, the Town Council adopted a similar ordinance with changes to the language. The town started enforcing the measure and Judge DeCubellis issued his ruling in response.
In 2020, the Narragansett Town Council voted 4-1 to amend the ordinance to limit the amount of college students living together to a maximum of three. Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter in 2021 ruled in favor of the landlords, again striking down the ordinance because the town had not given the public an opportunity to weigh in before its passage.
The town passed a similar ordinance that was again overturned, this time on procedural grounds .
The town, however, in 2023 began enforcing the 2016 ordinance limiting residents to four unrelated people, leading to the Rainaldis’ citation and challenge to the law, court records show.
Could the town fix the ordinance by simply defining family and unrelated?
"If they define it reasonably, does it get upheld? Maybe," Rocha, lawyer for the landlords, said. But it would need to comply with an amended state law that increases to five the number of unrelated people in a household that cities and towns can regulate, she said.
When it comes to defining family, that gets much more tricky, she observed.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Judge strikes down Narragansett ordinance limiting college rental housing. What he said.
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