To make its purpose even more self-evident, the ordinance pointedly added a definition: "The term 'family' does not include any group of individuals whose association is temporary or seasonal in nature." Translation: Ames will not allow no Animal Houses in here.
The city's policy did not attract universal support. The Ames Rental Property Association went to court with a challenge based primarily upon the due-process clauses of both the Iowa state and the U.S. constitutions. Unimpressed, an Iowa trial court granted the city's motion for summary judgment. Five months ago four members of the Supreme Court of Iowa affirmed; three justices dissented. Now the association's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court awaits a decision in Washington.
Will the high court hear the case? Maybe yes, more probably no.
In December 1971 one such residence had been rented to Michael Truman and Bruce Boraas. They were living there with Anne Parish and three other students — six in all. Eventually the owners and the three plaintiff students joined in a suit challenging the ordinance as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Speaking for the court, Justice William O. Douglas stoutly upheld the law.
"The regimes of boarding houses, fraternity houses and the like present urban problems. More people occupy a given space, more cars rather continuously pass by, more cars are parked, noise travels with crowds. A quiet place where yards are wide, people few, and motor vehicles restricted are legitimate guidelines in a land-use addressed to family needs. This goal is a permissible one ..."
It is irrational, said the dissenters, to relate a peaceful neighborhood with a neighborhood populated solely by families, or by three or fewer unrelated persons. As another court has said, 20 male cousins could live together, with their motorcycles parked outside, while more than three unrelated ministers would be barred. Further, "it is irrational to suppose this ordinance promotes a quiet and peaceful neighborhood. It does not distinguish between a raucous family that plays loud music and has large parties, and a house of four quiet homebodies whose only knowledge of wild parties comes from watching television ..."
The city of Ames has filed a brief in opposition in which it urges the court simply to deny an appeal and thus reaffirm the Belle Terre opinion of 1974: "Although society may be different in some respects today than when Belle Terre was decided, the reasons and goals behind the ordinances in Belle Terre and Ames remain." We will know in a few weeks if the Supremes will hear the case.
(Letters to Mr. Kilpatrick should be sent by email to kilpatjj@aol.com.)
